Ebony Riddle and the Truth About the Boy–Who–Died
by Shadow Crystal Mage
Summary: [HBP non–compatible]A secret is revealed. Harry Potter's half–sister Ebony, who was supposed to have been dead for almost fourteen years, is about to be kidnapped by her father the Dark Lord. The problem? HE is Ebony.
1. Prologue: Oh Dear…

A/N: HEY! It's me! As you can see, I've adopted a story I liked back when– OH, look, a plot bunny involving Ron as the Keybearer and a Xehanort-possessed Harry– !

(_is forcibly restrained by his muses and all the readers_)

Ahem. Okay, enough plot bunnies for a while. Anyway, **Jumiku** let me have her kid– although I'm perfectly willing to give it back when she asks– and I'm continuing it. Just to let you all know, this is not really OOTP and definitely not HBP compliant. DEAL WITH IT!

And now, here are **JuMiKu**'s original author notes:

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From **JuMiKu**: This story is dedicated to my grandfather, who killed himself on the 28th of March, shortly after I finished writing the fourth chapter of this story.

Note to all those Flamers out there. I count flaming as a sign of stupidity and think that someone, who has the time to read a story to tell the author, how bad the story is, should get himself a life (Who else reads many pages somebody worked hard on, just to tell the author something like that?!). So if you are such a miserable creature that has nothing better to do than harass hobby authors, who don't get a cent for what they are writing, feel free to flame if it eases a little of the pain you must be in.

This story starts in the summer before Harry's fifth year and doesn't take ootp into account, because some facts in the story contradict the prophecy... and I don't want padfoot to be dead... but there will be an Order of the Phoenix, the HQ, Tonks and of course our new favourite professor Umbridge! But the story will have an entirely different plot line, than ootp.

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Ebony Riddle and the Truth About the Boy-Who-Died

Created by **JuMiKu**

Adopted by Shadow Crystal Mage

Prologue: Oh Dear…

Disclaimer: I don't own anything until possibly the eight chapter, where I start putting in my own material. Harry Potter is owned by J.K. Rowling– if you didn't know that, how did you learn to use the internet so fast after leaving your cave?– Ebony was created by **JuMiKu**. Me? I'm a foster parent. ; )

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Severus Snape, Potions Master of Hogwarts and most hated teacher of the institution, prided himself for always keeping his cool exterior. He liked to frighten his students and humiliate them – with the exception of his Slytherins, that is. He had to keep up appearances after all.

Now that Voldemort was back and he had to start spying for the Order again, this had become even more important (not to mention he had a soft spot for them as he used to be in Slytherin himself and was now Head of Slytherin House).

But right now he didn't really care about his image; he was almost running down the corridor of the old run-down house. Once the home of the proud Black family, it was now the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix– a not-quite-so-secret organization determined to once again bring down the Dark Lord– since the bloody mutt (also known as Sirius Black but usually not thought of by Snape that way), the heir of the Black fortune and a wanted criminal, offered it to the Order to use.

It didn't matter anyway. Only a few of the Order members who weren't on one mission or another, the Weasley children and Granger (who were living at the headquarters, because they might be Voldemort's targets, because they are friends with the _oh_ so wonderful saviour****of the wizarding world)****and Dumbledore himself were currently at HQ and nobody but the headmaster– whom he had been conversing with before his arm decided to relive the Spanish Inquisition–was awake at this unholy hour anyway.

Of course, normally a simple call from his _oh_ so powerful Lord and master– who would kill Snape on the spot if he was aware of the depths of Snape's sarcasm regarding him– wouldn't make him _this_ nervous, but this was not a normal call. He felt like he was under at least five different pain-curses; all aimed at the exactly same spot on his arm where the Dark Mark was. He was glad that since he started to spy, he had been trained to have a very high resistance to pain, otherwise he'd be lying on the ground now, screaming in agony, instead of hurrying to answer his great and might master's call.

Torture, than death: Voldemort never really saw any sarcasm but his own funny.

_What in blazes does he want now? _Snape thought with a rather unusual blend of annoyance and fear that seemed completely unrelated to the way he was running through the halls like his robes were on fire. _We'd already met yesterday! What could be so bloody important…_

The thought went unfinished and his steps slowed slightly as another intruded in, one that kicked out a large portion of the annoyance and added more pure fear that was more in character to his running from a moment ago. _They can't have found out about my spying activities already, could they? It's been thirteen years, but I can't be **that** out of practice! And why call for me? Why not just call me in front during a meeting and kill me? Unless he's afraid I'll find out before hand…_

Snape shook his head, throwing out such thoughts. They'd go in circles for hours if he let them. _Doesn't matter. I have to go anyway, my position is too valuable to give up simply because I have a bad feeling about a summons– __and my arm is going to kill me!_

Finally, he passed the covered picture of the late Black matriarch, who was currently snoring loudly in her picture frame. He schooled his features before he left the house and Apparated to the location the Dark Mark was pulling him to.

He appeared amongst a few other Death Eaters, who were all wearing chalk-white masks like himself– hastily, he made sure his was still straight after all that running– which hid their entire face from view except their eyes. Their _dear, sweet_ master had yet to arrive.

He was grateful to realize that finally the pain coming from the Dark Mark was becoming a dull ache. When he saw that everyone seemed to be shaking from the after-effects of the pain their Marks had inflicted on them, he tried to take advantage of their temporary mental weakness, looking all of them briefly in the eye, but didn't manage to catch anything valuable save that Malfoy was as usual thinking of who to marry Draco to– again! The boy was barely fifteen for crying out loud!

He identified them as the top Death Eaters of Voldemort's inner circle– he could tell that much from their robes alone; Malfoy _always _wore silk, no matter what, and Nott's creepy slinking was obvious anywhere– but there was something that didn't bode well, a feeling in the air. He'd caught a small dose of it before he'd had to back out off their minds; a glimmer of anticipated joy.

He wondered what this was about. There'd been nothing in the meeting yesterday that could cause this kind of reaction. Perhaps he should reconsider his policy of reporting to Dumbledore as soon as possible and hang around after meetings to talk. After all, his theory about their inanities rubbing off on him didn't _really_ have any basis besides empirical evidence…

No, better safe than sorry.

When Severus looked around, he saw that they were standing in the shade of trees, in what he assumed was a park. He doubted anyone was able to see them in the darkness. Voldemort had more than fashion reasons for choosing their uniform.

It didn't take long for him to realize what the others were so excited about. They were in a muggle community. _There is only one thing Voldemort might be up to here…_

They must be here for _fun_.

Coldly, Snape debated his options. He didn't really care about muggles, being apathetic of them now that he was a wizarding adult, but he knew that Dumbledore did.The Order had obviously underestimated the Dark Lord and assumed he would take the time to concentrate his forces. Contacting the Order would be a useless gesture.Even if he could contact Dumbledore, he doubted if there were more than two Order members at Headquarters. It seemed only four other Death Eaters and himself were called, but with Voldemort present the spy knew they didn't stand a chance.

The sallow-faced man began to write off the muggles that would be involved in this night's debacle.

Still, he wondered where Voldemort was.

As if in answer, the front door of one of the identical looking houses opened and Severus, along with his _fellow_ Death Eaters, immediately took out his wand.

But what he didn't expect was for the most powerful dark wizard of this century, to step out of the house. If it weren't for the seemingly glowing red eyes, Severus wouldn't have recognised him in the darkness…

Then Snape blinked.

The red-eyed figure, which he was sure was the Dark Lord… seemed to be carrying a person!

The man approached them with purposeful strides, holding the person- which could now in the dim light of a lantern a few yards away be recognised as a teen of about fourteen years- possessively in his arms in a parody of paternal love.

The alarm bells that had begun ringing in Snape's head increased in volume. There was something _very_ wrong with this situation…

Severus tried to get a more detailed look of the child's face, trying to get a clue as to what was happening. The shadows made it impossible to do so, however. Yet it seemed strangely… familiar.

When Voldemort entered their semicircle, every Death Eater including himself knelt down and kissed the hem of the Dark Lord's robe. Snape was very grateful said Dark Lord was a fastidious dresser.

After this ritual was over and everybody was standing again, the Dark Lord spoke, and Snape, in a moment of fancy bought on by stress– goodness knows he's had a lot of those over the years– wondered if he was deliberately trilling his s's or if they were a result of one of the countless experiment's he'd done to himself: "I invited you here tonight because I consider you privileged to be with me.

"Tonight is the night of my triumph! I've returned for only a few short months and already I seal the fate of the muggles, mudbloods and muggle-lovers. I now have the one who defeated me within my grasp!" The unconscious form in his arms moaned in pain as the person holding him enjoyed his victory

There were gasps at this revelation, and Snape finally put the silhouette into place.

_Potter_.

"I believe I have also found a way to get rid of _Harry Potter_ once and for all and at the same time bring back my _daughter,_" Voldemort said, his red eyes gleaming brightly.

Severus' colleagues****had obviously overcome their surprise, because they were grovelling at _their_ Lords feet again muttering about how great he was. It was with great distaste that he followed suit– that is, as great distaste as he could manage in a state of satisfaction and confusion.

After all, it was no secret he didn't like Potter.

Then the second part of the statement penetrated.

His daughter?

Oh no…

When everybody was properly standing again, Voldemort continued: "But before we begin we should wake up our guest of honour, shouldn't we?" His followers laughed– Snape was glad he didn't have to force this one tonight– as he laid the body he was holding down on the ground. "_Enervate_!"

Another pained moan escaped the Boy-Who-Probably-Wouldn't-Be-Living-Much-Longer as he groggily sat up. A moment later emerald-green eyes opened only to widen in horror as he realized in which company he was and then be shut in pain once more as he groped at his scar.

The Death Eaters around him laughed louder. Their master continued with a conversational tone: "So before we come to this night's zenith, why don't we give young _Mr. Potter _a short history lesson?" He gave an oily grin that would have sent small children running to their mothers in pure terror.

Snape noted that Potter had the sense to stop caring about his little headache and was now looking (or trying to look) discretely around, obviously searching for an escape. He deliberately sealed an opening next to him and watched as hope seemed to die a little in the boy. Though he might try to save him if at all possible without blowing his cover– Snape grudgingly started thinking in ways that he hadn't touched in three-and-a-half years– it seemed highly unlikely that it would be possible, so he resigned himself to enjoying Potter's eventual– most likely protracted and painful– death.

Severus tuned back to what the Dark Lord was saying– after all, if the boy died he wanted to savor every detail… oh, and get valuable information, too: "As I remember that Harry is sorely lacking in manners...", the Dark Lord said, slightly amused. With a flick of his wand, he bound the boy to prevent him from escaping and charmed the boy's attention on himself, then added a silencing charm as an afterthought. "Not many children are told and I'm very sure nobody would tell you, but three months after Harry James Potter's birth, I had a few– let's say– _intimate_…hours… with Lily."

Snape watched as the boy went red and wondered what would kill him first, a stroke or a heart attack. Snape himself remembered that night. It had led to the third time the Potters had defied the Dark Lord. He was very ashamed of his own role in those events. If he hadn't been so detailed in his report to Dumbledore the days before, James Potter might have died trying to get his wife back…

Suppressing a sigh a the memories of what-had-and-might-have-been, Snape kept on listening.

"Inevitably, nine months later there were consequences," Voldemort continued. "Throughout the pregnancy, the Potters thought the child was James', but when Lily gave birth to a baby girl on the first of august and the usual tests were made, the paternal-spell announced that the child was mine! It was named Ebony Layla Potter. I found the name quaint and decided to let my daughter keep it. Of course, the wizarding world was in an uproar and wanted the child dead. I tried to get the child of course, but the Ministry was faster and my daughter was executed in public two weeks after her birth."

Voldemort made a show of sighing sadly, before turning towards Harry with a gleam in his eye. Snape wondered if the Dark Lord was thinking of re-enacting what had gone on the _last_ time he'd had someone with the surname Potter in his hands during a war.

"Or so it seemed! I recently realized something. It has to do with that interesting scar on your forehead, the pain you feel when you are near me or I feel strong emotions and the fact you are a Parseltongue like myself." He was by now circling the boy in a very predatory fashion. Said boy still seemed to be coping with the information that his little sister was killed by the Ministry for no reason, but existing.

"Wormtail told me Lily had been acting strangely when Ebony was born. Neglecting her first-born and husband; she only had eyes for her baby-girl, her favoured child. But curiously, she didn't fight back, when the Aurors came and took her beloved daughter. After her daughter was taken, she cared for her son with the same love she used to bestow on her younger child.

Voldemort paused to let that sink in.

"So I have a theory I will put to the test tonight. Severus, my dearest potion master!" Snaped twitched at being called Voldemort's dearest _anything_ as he stepped forward, looking coolly down at the boy and trying to communicate his joy at the boy's impending demise. After all, that's what usually happened to those sacrificed during Dark Rituals, and that was the only thing that _might_ bring a dead girl back. Of course, since it had been so long since the child's death, it might not work, but that was okay, since Potter would still be dead… He kept his face perfectly smooth as he addressed the Voldemort. "My Lord?"

"Do you by chance happen to know the Polyjuice Potion?"

A firm quashing of his sarcasm instinct, keeping the near-magically generated _"No, I'm called a Potions Master because it sounds fancy" _out of his mouth. He settled for a simple, "Yes, my Lord, I do."

"Did you know that it usually only lasts for an hour?"

The sarcasm instinct was slightly harder to quash. "Of course my Lord, but combined with intention, emotion and charms the effects last… longer…"

A light went on in his head.

The Dark Lord looked pleased with him, probably correctly inferring by Snape's wide-eyed look that he'd put it together. "So... there is the possibility to make it last significantly longer... Lily Potter, while a mere mudblood, had a certain… aptitude… for charms… as well as charm-work and potions." There was some laughter at the crude joke. Snape didn't know Voldemort had it in him. "She would have been capable of performing the necessary alchemy, she had the strong intention to save her… _beloved _child and _love_ is supposed to be _stronger than anything_, isn't it?" Voldemort grinned as he gave Dumbledore's words a sarcastic twist. "So what if her will to protect the thing she loved most in her life was strong enough to make the potion's effect last to this very day. What if she used the Polyjuice Potion to swap her children. What if Harry James Potter was killed and his half-sister Ebony Layla _Riddle **lived.**_"

Denial. Severus was going through it and he was pretty sure Potter was too. The Death Eaters seemed unsure how to react to the news, that the Boy-Who-Lived was the bastard child of their lord and master and _lived because_ his mother rather saved _her _rather than _her brother Harry._

And that meant… oh dear.

But Lord Voldemort wasn't quite finished yet: "If my theory is correct, then your scar is a split in the complicated net of potions, charms, intention and _love–"_ yet another twist "–your mother used to make sure you looked like your brother. It was created when the killing curse and this net hit each other. You feel pain coming from your scar, because your magic fights the foreign magic surrounding it, which is part of your body until the spell completely wears off. I am the one connection to your real appearance; when this connection is triggered, your blood and magic realizes that your mother's magic is imprisoning it in spells. It makes sense. And I believe it is time to take my theory to the test!"

Voldemort smiled coldly at the child before him. Possibly his or not, he was not about to deny himself the chance to cause Harry Potter pain. This would hurt… a lot.

The****Gryffindor started to tremble slightly when Voldemort knelt down in front of him. Then the Dark Lord did something unexpected; he kissed the child's forehead. The scar to be exact.

_That **had** to have been unnecessary_, Snape thought as Potter looked like he would puke, scream, have an aneurysm, heart attack, _and_ stroke right at that moment. He was sure he heard a gurgling in the brat's throat.

For a second, nothing seemed to happen… then Potter opened his mouth wide as if to scream. Only a small high-pitched cry came forth, quickly stifled as Voldemort stood up. The scar was bleeding.

The boy began to roll on the ground in agony, and Snape, despite all previous revelations, felt a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Harry Potter or not, it was simply _beautiful_ to see something with James Potter's face in pain.

Snape, in his enjoyment, almost missed out on the fine details of what was happening, such as the lightening-shaped scar was growing in length; zigzagging across the boy's skin. It soon looked like the boy's skin was braking into thousands of pieces. The pieces of the net of charms, potion, intent and emotion, which had been hiding the child's real body for almost fifteen years started to float and finally disappeared, leaving behind the unconscious body of a person who didn't seem to have anything in common with the one who had been in it's place only moments before. Impossibly long and slightly matted hair that had never seen a brush or a pair of scissors was preventing the shell-shocked spy to see any details of the _girl_.

_Girl._ Very, _very_ girl. Oh. Dear…

The Dark Lord picked the unmoving (but breathing) form up again and held it in the same possessive almost protective way like before. Soon the Death Eaters recovered from their shock and began to rejoice. It was obvious what they thought, that even though the child had been their master's downfall fourteen years ago, it would be easy to make her join their side now that she knew she was Slytherin's heiress. Snape, slowly descending into catatonia now that the fun of seeing a James-alike in pain was over, really couldn't make himself care.

Voldemort shot him then the house he had left half an hour ago a meaningful glance. He was still rationall enough to understand and woodenly shot the Dark Markinto the sky. It hovered ominously over the house the Dark Lord had visited.****

At an unspoken signal, they all Apparated away… except for Snape. No, he was definitely _not_ in a state to be Apparating, or doing much else for that matter. Potter… was a girl. **_THE_** girl… oh dear.

It took him a while to finally return to his senses, to remember the Order, and the war and everything, and that he had to report and tell Dumbledore and Moody and… and… and…

Unseen by anyone but the night, Snape let his eyes go wide as he remembered one little detail.

Oh dear…

_I do **not **want to be around when the mutt finds out..._

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**- To be continued...**

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A/N: And done!

YAY! My first adoption! I'm sure Ebony will get along with my other Harry's just fine…

(_insert evil laughter here_)

Please review, C&C welcome. Also, please check out **JuMiKu's**fics. She's got one where Harry's armed with an honest-to-Akane MALLET!

**JuMiKu**'s notes: That makes our little vampy sound much funnier than he really is. Anyway thanks for the recommendation!

I already love your version of my story. (**_hug_**)

Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.


	2. Reactions and Recues

A/N: I got varied response from the first chapter, but that was to be expected…

Have finished book seven, if that's any help to those who remember the original version of this…

And now, on with the show!

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From **JuMiKu**: Note to all those _**nice**_ flamers out there: I hate your reviews! If you can't write good reviews that might encourage authors and help them to improve, then stop posting them here and criticise your friends, so authors like me, who are looking for constructive criticism, don't always end up finding reviews like yours! Do all of us, who know, what writing fanfiction is about (the fun for the reader _and _the author) a favour and stop reviewing! Thank you.

This flamer-note is dedicated to three flamers whose flames I once red. Those flames inspired me to write them from an author's point of view. This is what they said (down to the "Thank you") I only changed the keywords.

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Ebony Riddle and the Truth About the Boy-Who-Died

Created by **JuMiKu**

Adopted by Shadow Crystal Mage

Chapter 1: Reactions and Rescues

Disclaimer: I don't own anything until possibly the eight chapter, where I start putting in my own material. Harry Potter is owned by J.K. Rowling– if you didn't know that, how did you learn to use the internet so fast after leaving your cave?– Ebony was created by **JuMiKu**. Me? I'm a foster parent. ; )

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Snape– eventually– managed to pull himself together enough to get a move on. .

_Pott–_there was a mental twitch as Snape proceeded to edit what he was thinking– _**THE GIRL**__ will have to keep herself out of trouble for now– although considering the things she got up to as Potter, my best hope is she remains unconscious for as long as possible. It's doubt Voldemort will hurt her– much. Will he try to persuade her to join him? Kill her, so she cannot turn out to be a threat to him? It would be best to get her out before he gets tired of persuasion and threats... _

Snape took a moment to realize he was thinking all this on behalf of the person who'd always known as Harry Potter.

_That's it, it's official. No matter what happens, __**never**__ promise anything to a Gryffindor! Especially not anything you can't get out of!_

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Dawn was approaching as Snape arrived at Grimmauld place. The sun's golden light already bent around the horizon a promise of the day to come.

When he opened the door, he wasn't too surprised that he wasn't met with several wands_. Security is slacking at this place..._

Heading for the kitchen, which was the closest thing they had to a conference room, he heard raised voices arguing._ News certainly travels fast,_ he thought dryly. _Especially bad news._

He paused a moment to listen at the door, trying to discern something from the screaming coming from inside. Not able to make sense of the commotion, he gave it up as a lost cause and strode in.

The yelling stopped at once as all eyes trained on him, some in clear distrust. There was no twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes when he spoke; his voice was grave and old. "Severus, please take a seat. Do you anything to report?"

Restraining himself from making a comment about how all the concern for his well-being was touching, the spy nodded and took the only seat left. He took a moment to note Black's apparent state of mind; staring at his shaking hands, lots of twitching that didn't seem to be withdrawal symptoms… oh, he was a mess. At any other time, he would have enjoyed the reaction to the news he brought.

…

Well, actually, he was still going to enjoy the reaction, but his own discomfort was seriously going to detract from it.

Dumbledore got straight to the point. "Do you know anything about the raid of a house in Surrey that happened a few hours ago?" he asked. Everyone was now looking at him, some expectantly, others hopefully and many threateningly, daring him to lie.

Snape was equally direct: if he was going to milk any enjoyment out of this, he'd have it _now_. Besides, any melodramatics would just as likely to make _him_ squirm. "They have Potter."

"_**WHAT?-!-?**_"

Snape was slightly heartened at Black's more or less predictable enraged cry, although there was certainly more to it than mere rage. That was the beauty of getting good reactions from people, the hidden art: to tug on as many heartstrings a possible with a minimum of effort.

He was slightly less heartened by the man's seemingly knee-jerk reaction of slamming him into a wall. A wand pass pressing painfully against his throat, making breathing uncomfortable, and not a little painful.

"Did you know?" Black asked coldly, pressing his childhood-foe painfully against the hard stone. "Did you know your master was going to attack my godson?-!-? Did you sell Harry to that monster?-!-?"

Snape looked him in the eyes. "I didn't need to, although I would have certainly enjoyed doing so–" there was a growling sound that sounded suspiciously like the overly-emotional and over-active Weasley woman; why they let her into these meetings, he'll never know "– after all, Potter's already dead."

Everybody in the room was stared at him in shock the information sinking in. Many who'd probably never met the boy– _girl_– in their lives and would know him– _her_– from Adam– _Eve_– if it weren't for that wretched scar– _split in the complicated net of potions, charms, intention and love_– began to cry. Severus wondered what they were weeping for.

The relative few in the room who _had _known him– _her_– were in various states of shock in denial– and in his case, a nauseus, sinking feeling not unlike the sensation of finding out a chore you thought you'd successfully gotten out of had come back more onerous and painful than before.

Sirius sank to the floor crying and Snape wished he had one of those bideyo camera things he'd heard about. Oh well, a Pensieve would be just as good.

The room was descending into a state of overly emotional expression when Dumbledore decided to take control.

"Enough," he said, looking every of his two hundred years and looking like he was about to collapse in on himself. "Please Severus, tell us what has happened to him."

For a fleeting moment, Snape wondered if this was how the Weasley twins felt before they dropped a bomb. "Perhaps you misunderstand me, Headmaster. I did not mean he died just now. I meant he has been dead for fourteen years." He took a moment to listen to the rather satisfying sound of so many heads snapping up in shock, then ploughed on before anyone could interrupt. "According to Voldemort, Potter died years ago…"

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Snape wound down his report, the satisfaction of so many stunned people having dimmed considerably in the quarter hour or so he'd been speaking. His insides felt twisted now as the repercussions of his responsibility sank in again, with little pleasure at the mutt's expense to counter it. "And that is how things stand," he said, outwardly calm. "Now, what do we do?"

The headmaster's voice was calm and reasonablein the way it sounds reasonable to declare war with nuclear weapons. "As a matter of fact, there might be a very easy solution to this problem, but it could prove to be very dangerous for you, Severus ."

_Is it ever_ not___dangerous for me? _Snape thought. What _actually_ came out of his mouth was: "I will do all I can to get Ebony back home."

Everybody, but Albus shuddered, when Severus said the child's name. Some because nobody in the room had dared to speak it out-loud for fear of ultimately accepting the teenager's new identity, the others because the Dark Heiress' name was almost as feared as her father's. He wondered how that had come about, since the last time it had been spoken, she'd been about a few _days_ old. Hardly the stuff of terror.

Their leader seemed highly amused by their reactions, however, his eyes regaining some of their twinkle and he commented in a cheerful tone: "You remember that being afraid of a thing's name increases the fear of the thing itself, don't you?"

_At least some things never change,_ Snape thought, idly contemplating the wisdom of the concept of Mandatory Retirement Age._ Our headmaster will always be missing some of his marbles._

For a moment the headmaster looked at him, silently appraising him, then he continued: "It could be as easy as giving Ebony a portkey disguised as an inconspicuous object."

Mrs. Weasley, who had calmed down somewhat, managed to undo so many precious seconds work just my hearing those words. "You can't honestly consider using a portkey so soon after what happened at the Triwizard Tournament! Harr– Ebony will be scared to death if you make her travel by portkey!"

Dumbledore tried to calm the overprotective mother-figure. "Molly, Ebony is very brave. She will be all right. I am more worried about her staying with Voldemort until Severus finds an opportunity to give her the portkey."

smiled gently and sadly.: "That is something I don't worry too much about. She has already proven that she can look after herself; After all, she has been doing so for the better part of her life."

_And yet, _Snape thought snidely, _you were about to go up in arms about giving her a __**portkey!**_

Suddenly the Lupin snapped at Dumbledore, surprising everyone present. "And why? Because she _had to_ look after herself, because she had to stay with people who were disgusted by her, because she would be _well-protected___with them! But do you know what? The wards around the house didn't save Ha-!" he stopped abruptly, when he stumbled across the name, which gave their leader enough time to stop the other man before he had the chance to continue his ranting.

"Remus, I am truly sorry, but I'm afraid I didn't allow for the house to be attacked by a close relative of the child. The wards protecting the house are based on blood wards. The two are father and daughter, so they share even deeper blood-ties than Ebony used to with her aunt; this was enough to fool the wards into letting him pass."

Silence reigned again.

Dumbledore continued to the matter at hand. "Severus, we will speak about the details of this plan once you have been able to gather some information, but please don't take too much time doing so, you know how easily Voldemort's patience grows thin. "

"And what if she has already joined him by then?" Black's voice filled the room. Everybody stared at Black in shock, anger or agreement."I mean come on, she is a _monster_'s daughter, what else could she turn out to be?"

A resounding slap echoed across the room. Everybody stared open-mouthed at the Weasley matriarch, because they all knew _very _well that she had a healthy set of lungs, but she never, _ever _raised her hand against anyone.

They were a bit scared, when she didn't scream her head off in Black's face, but hissed in a low threatening tone. "Don't you dare say anything like that about her ever again! This girl loves _you _like a father. If you dare say something like that to her, I swear by god that absolutely _no one_ will recognize you when I'm through with you."

The mutt blinked twice dumbly, holding the cheek she had hit.

Dumbledore took on a slightly disapproving look as he continued like nothing happened, breaking the tension, or at least stretching to enough for it to loosen. "Since there doesn't seem anything left to discuss and if nobody has anything to report..." he looked around the room questioningly, but the members all shook their heads, avoiding his gaze."...I'd like you, Arthur to..."

Severus tuned Dumbledore out as he gave everyone else their jobs, too busy considering the ramifications of this. This would divide them. There was no question about this. The only question was, _how badly…_

* * *

A week later, at the next meeting, nothing had calmed down neither between Lupin and Black, nor the two groups in general. The pro-Ebony-side was always fighting with the anti-Ebony-side.

Dumbledore had talked to him about his worries a few days ago. The old wizard was horrified that the Order's unity could be destroyed that easily.

The household had been in a very bad mood ever since that fateful night seven days ago and though the adults tried to act normal around the kids, they seemed to know what was going on. Fudge wouldn't be able to hush up the attack on the _Boy-Who-Lived's_ home for very long. After all, the boy's relatives were killed, the boy missing and the Dark Mark had been hovering over the place for an hour.

"Severus?"

Actually Severus was impressed that Fudge had been able to keep the news a secret for that long. _Then again Lucius probably has something to do with this..._

_"Severus!" _Said person jumped and turned to Dumbledore surprised. A bit of the twinkle that had been absent from the man's eyes for the past few days returned, as he said amusedly: "Really, Severus... How many points did you take from that poor first year Hufflepuff for daydreaming in your class last year?"

If Severus had any less control over his emotions, he would have blushed a bright crimson or at least looked a little ashamed, but Severus was proud to be very skilled in Occlumency. As it was, he settled for a very dirty look, and not the kind that encouraged either.

Dumbledore wasn't finished with him though and continued with a voice he usually saved to discipline his students with: "Severus, you know you should be paying attention. I hope something like that won't happen again."

The tension that had been there, since the two groups had been forced to be in the same room, lifted somewhat as a few chuckles filled the air and many members smiled for the first time, since Harry Potter's 'disappearance'. _I'm going to let him get away with making fun of me only this once, because it had the desired and desperately needed effect of making everyone relax a little._

Once Dumbledore had sobered again and banished the annoying twinkle from his eyes, he got down to business. "I was asking you, Severus, if you have been able to find any information about when you might be able to give Ebony– " Here the groups tensed up again. _Pitiful! _"–A portkey, without raising suspicion against yourself."

_It's sad really. For the past week I preferred to snoop about Voldemort's hideout gathering information, to spending my time here with all these fights going on.__ Well at least the danger was worth something_: _I was successful... The rest will be more or less easy. _"Yes. I now know that the room is bugged, so Voldemort always knows what's going on in there. Only two people are allowed to enter the chamber besides Lord Voldemort himself at the moment. One is a House Elf, but the other's identity is still unknown to me, but I'm sure it is human, so it is safe to assume it is some Death Eater. I think we could use this arrangement to our advantage. We could use the House Elf as an accomplice, as I overheard several conversations it had with some of its kind. It has grown very attached to her. I'm sure I can convince it to give her the Portkey." At Dumbledore's concerned and scandalised look at using the being's feelings against it and putting it in danger, Severus sneered. "It is a _House Elf_, Albus! Nobody would _ever_ suspect _it._" _Damn that man's compassion for these creatures! I swear if he begins _one_ more stuff-meeting by saying a House Elf that had been mistreated by its owners followed him to the school, I'm going to- _(The following thought was too gruesome for this fic's rating and has been censored)!_ The place has _at least _twice as many of them, since Albus became Headmaster!"_

After Dumbledore contemplated this for some time, he nodded unwillingly. "What do you want to turn into a Portkey?"

"A brush."

As everybody raised their eyebrows in incredulity, he said, "She has obviously found that having long hair and the habit of not brushing it don't agree with each other. The House Elf talked to the others about her spending hours brushing her hair." Severus snorted at the irony. When the child had still been a boy, Severus was positive that he hadn't even _owned _a brush; if his hair was anything to go by, that is. "The elf can exchange the girl's brush for the Portkey."

Dumbledore thought for a moment before nodding. "This sounds like a reasonable plan. When do you want to go talk to the elf?"

"At once, I'm afraid her father's patience with her won't last much longer..."

"Good luck, my friend", Albus sighed. Severus tried not to hear "Your funeral" and wasn't very successful.

When Snape stood up, he noticed that the groups were still easily told apart by their attitude, while the pro-Ebonies were looking at him encouragingly, which was nice for a change, but was annoying as him well, those against her were searching for some way to prevent the _enemy_ from being taken to their Headquarters. Elphias Doge for example was at the moment thinking of some way to explain to Dumbledore that to the girl was highly dangerous and not to be trusted. _Legilimency skills definitely have their advantages when the people around you are practically broadcasting their thoughts._

After enchanting a brush, he left the house as fast as possible, because he was worried about the girl; after all he was living in a world, where vengeful souls like Lily's could come back to hunt you and if she didn't make him pay, the Pro-Ebony-fraction would be sure to make his life miserable, if something happened to the girl.

When he finally found the House Elf, he did the simplest thing to make a House Elf obey without being asked questions: treat them like dirt. He barked a "Follow!" and entered the next room. He shut the door with a few wards and then placed a few silencing charms on the room. Then he turned to the shivering mass the little creature had become, when Severus had pulled out his wand. Though they preferred muggles and muggleborns, the Death Eaters liked to practice their curses on these beings.

_OK, how to convince it to help me…?_ went the sarcastic thought, followed by the logical conclusion. _Order it to!_

"Come here!" he snarled at the small thing in front of him.

It looked like it would pee the towel it was wearing any minute now.

* * *

**- To be continued...**

* * *

Please review, C&C welcome.

Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.


	3. Harry or Ebony?

A/N: I've decided to stop putting off posting these chapters. They were good enough as they were when they were first posted, they'll do now. If I feel the need to change them in future, i'll do so. See chapter one for explanation of why this is being posted by me...

And now, here are **JuMiKu**'s original author notes:

* * *

From **JuMiKu**: Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter! So brother of mine now you know what to buy me for my next birthday. You better start saving your money.

Direct speech will be like this: "blah"

Inner monologues like this: "_blah"_

**Ebony Riddle and the truth about the boy-who-died**

**Chapter three: Harry or Ebony?**

Harry stirred as the sun shown through the window of his room, but he just rolled to the other side, snuggling deeper into the warm covers of his bed. He hadn't slept well this night and felt tired, but he knew he was feeling too stiff to fall asleep again. His entire body felt somehow numb, but was at the same time aching. He was also afraid he'd have another nightmare.

He had dreamed about finding himself in the midst of a couple of deatheaters and Voldemort, who had been feeling so victorious that Harry had been very close to passing out again, because his scar had been working on overdrive. Voldemort had said his mom had had a child with him. This Ebony, he had said, was him, Harry, while the real Harry Potter had been killed instead of her.

_"What a dream! How did my mind come up with something this terrifying and far fetched I'll never know!"_

Slowly Harry's sleep-clouded mind was starting to work properly, though Harry was working hard to fog it up again, because he knew he wouldn't be able to go to sleep again, once he was completely awake. Sadly he soon noticed that some things were off.

It was strange, but the first unusual thing that Harry noticed was that his bed was very comfortable. He knew the Dursley's were stingily, at least when it came to spending money for Harry, so it was very _abnormal_ for the things they gave to him, like the mattress and the blankets he used, to be anything, but used to the point, where other people would throw them away. These things were of course _anything,_ but comfortable. Sadly he was not in the mood to care.

But there was no point in staying in bed, as his aunt would wake him soon to make breakfast, so Harry decided it was now as bad as ever a time to get up.

Drowsily he opened his eyes to see blurred shapes. Then his jaw dropped. The blurred picture he saw was sharp a few moments later. Harry touched his face, just to be sure he really wasn't wearing his glasses. He wasn't. He rubbed his eyes, but everything came back into focus when he opened his eyes again.

Harry was starting to feel very uncomfortable, but still walked over to the mirror in front of him, which was hanging on a wall of a room that most certainly wasn't his just to make sure what he was seeing on his chest, despite the fact that Dudley's old clothing made it almost impossible to tell, was just his vivid imagination again.

Standing in front of the mirror he saw, what he assumed to be a girl in oversized clothing with hair, which touched the floor and was greasy and matted. Her skin was pale; deathly so. Harry could see through it, because it was almost translucent. Her eerie mismatched eyes were staring at him unblinkingly sending chills down his spine. One of her eyes was emerald green like his own, but the other was blood red with a silted pupil, like a cat's.

The girl was starting to tremble and didn't look as indifferent anymore. Her face twisted into a horrified expression as they both sank to the floor, still staring at each other. The girl opened her mouth and emitted a bloodcurdling scream.

Several objects in the room including the mirror were destroyed in an uncontrolled wave of magic. Luckily for the child kneeling on the floor, the same magic which had almost made them stab her protected her from severe harm by sending the bigger shards flying across the room to crash against the wall. Her skin began to bleed in the many places where the small bits of glass had cut her. Pages of destroyed books, fragments of the mirror, bits of furniture, and strangely, pieces of china-dolls and many black and white dresses, with the lace and fluff of some kind of stuffed animal were lying everywhere as the magical outburst stopped. She didn't notice. Tears were forming in her eyes and soon they were pouring down her face. She leaned forward slightly to look into a bigger piece of what was a mirror moments before. Still, there it was. Staring back at her was not the image of Harry James Potter, but of Ebony Layla Riddle, if she remembered her name correctly. She flung it across the room to make the image shatter to little pieces, not caring that she cut her hand deeply doing this.

A crack brought her attention to a small creature, which seemed to be very scared by the destruction around the room. It had big batty ears and eyes that were too big for his face. _"Dobby!" _The panicked teen flung her arms around her friend, hugging him against her chest like a scared four-years-old would hold onto her teddy. The shocked Elf stiffened, but soon relaxed into her embrace, awkwardly hugging her back. After a while the house elf started to whisper comforting words to calm her.

All she wanted right now was for all of this to be a dream.

Luckily there weren't many things _Harry_ prided himselffor, but of those things was his ability to be able to deal with almost anything you throw at him.

So soon he had calmed down and was thinking rationally again.

_"This has to be a trick. Voldemort is trying to make me think that I am his daughter. He _is_ one of the most powerful wizards alive. He probably could easily turn me into this without breaking a sweat."_

Harry looked at the face of the Elf, who was still in his arms and was embarrassed to see, that he had mixed his friend up with a different houself _again _andhadhugged a stranger, but the elf didn't seem to mind, as he (Harry was quite talented in the difficult art of recognizing a house elf's gender) was looking at him concerned and a little scared. Harry felt stupid for mixing the two up, as this elf was very different from his friend, wearing a dirty, old towel, which was a sign of his slavery, while his friend wore colorful, cheerful clothing. Dobby was very proud to be free.

Harry asked the first of his millions of questions as it was the most polite and he had learned that the easiest way to make a house elf do something for you was to be polite to him or her: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to break down on you like that. What is your name?" She was stunned when she heard her voice. It was slightly higher than it used to be. _"Don't panic! Just a simple charm nothing more!"_

The elf looked like he was about to faint, but soon started bawling instead, crying about this being nicest thing anybody had ever said to him. Harry felt bad for the elf.

The elf then smiled tearfully, but to Harry's chagrin he still looked very nervous. "My name is Bobby, Mistress."

Harry suppressed the urge to frown at the title, as it would probably frighten Bobby more and the house elf was probably ordered by it's master to call him that. He didn't want the house elf to hurt himself, so he didn't correct him.

Bobby suddenly looked horrified and screamed shrilly: "Mistress, you are bleeding! Should I go get a healer?"

"No!", she told the elf a little too sharply, but when she saw how panicked the houself looked she regretted it, so she continued in a very gentle tone: "Sorry, I just... Don't you think you could do something to help me?" Harry hated mediwitches and -wizards almost as much as deatheaters, so a combination of both was the last thing he wanted to be with right now, but the house elf was once again too shocked to reply immediately. He needed a long time to regain his composure before he was able to nod still unable to speak.

Then Bobby spoke with a proud voice, Harry had never heard a slaved house elf use before: "It would it would be an honor for me to heal you, Mistress." He bowed lowly. _"I have to research house elf culture, if books on this topic do exist... I need to find out what I just did."_

While Bobby examined his wounds, probably trying to decide where to start or how to heal which wound, Ebony let her mind wander.

_"Why didn't Snape help me, when Voldemort did this to me? The bastard didn't even look at me! I wonder, if Dumbledore is wrong and the greasy-haired git is still loyal to the Dark Lord... or does he believe I'm the Dark Lord's daughter? No, he is many things, but not stupid. He wouldn't believe something, like this, if he knew there had never been __a public murder of the Dark Lord's heir. It would be all over the press... _Did_ I have a younger sister? No! Somebody would have told me! ...I hope..."_

Ebony depressing thoughts were interrupted, when her new friend instructed her: "Mistress, please lay on your bed, as this will most likely make it easier for you." When she was lying on her back on the comfortable bed once more, he continued: "Try to relax, Mistress!" Seeing her confused look, he elaborated: "You are supposed to relax your magic. My magic will have problems healing you, if your magic is fighting against it. Our magic is different and doesn't like to be mixed, Mistress."

Ebony was surprised, that not all house elves seemed to have a speech defect, but did as she was told. She had never tried to "relax" her magic before, so she didn't really know what to do. She was grateful, when Bobby noticed this and said: "At the moment you are very emotional, which strengthens your magic, Mistress. You need to control your emotions."

She decided to stop staring, because she rather liked the change in the elf's demeanor and didn't want him to think, he had done something that he should punish himself for. She shuddered, when she thought about Dobby and how helpless she felt, when he had hurt himself. It had been very frightening. _"Maybe SPEW wasn't such a bad thing after all...but it does need a different name, which sounds more serious...The elves in Hogwarts are obviously happy, but there are those like Dobby, who need help."_

Ebony tried to block her emotions, but she was in a very stressing situation. The pain, she was in, was distracting as well. "_OK, clear your mind this is important! You can do this, Ebo- Har-! Stop it! You are supposed to get rid of these emotions and this is _not _helping! If you don't allow Bobby to heal you soon he will have to get help, so if you don't want to be helped by someone like Malfoy, you need to do this. Shit... That made me determined and anxious..." _Ebony decided to try to calm by closing her eyes and concentrating on taking deep breaths.

She felt a tingling sensation replace the pain she had been feeling, but continued taking deep breaths for a lack of anything better to do to keep her mind of things.

"I'm finished, my Mistress Ebony." She opened her eyes to see Bobby kneeling next to her on the bed, smiling exhaustedly at her, a few beads of sweat rolling down his face.

Ebony looked startled at the elf. He had used, what he thought was her first name, though he still used the title "mistress", this was very unusual. Even Dobby didn't call her just "Harry": It was always Harry Potter and they had been friends for years! Not to mention the endearment 'my'. _"I do need to find out what is so special about him healing me, that he doesn't feel threatened at all by me anymore." _Bobby didn't look like he noticed her staring at him, he seemed far too exhausted.

Ebony felt slightly ashamed that she hadn't asked the elf, if healing her would be unhealthy for him. She asked concernedly: "Are you alright? Do you need to rest? Why didn't you tell this would be tiring for you?"

The elf held up his hands to silence her, which shocked her _very_ much and calmly told her: "Don't worry about me. I'm just a bit tired. Do you feel any pain now, my Mistress?"

Ebony shook her head smiling gratefully at Bobby. She looked at her arms and hands to notice that even the deepest cuts had not left any scars, when they had closed. "Thank you very much, Bobby." Her gratitude made the houself grin proudly, which made her laugh slightly.

A few moments later she sobered, remembering where she was held captive by an insane murderer. _"I need to find some way top escape!"_

"Bobby, where exactly are we at the moment?", she asked politely.

Bobby looked a little unsure himself for a moment, but he answered: "Riddle-manor, Mistress, it used to be your great-grandparents home. I don't know, what is outside. Very strong wards are placed around the house to make it impossible to got outside and to prevent people from entering the manor, my Mistress Ebony."

Ebony began to panic and asked the elf a little desperately: "But how does one enter or leave this place then?!"

He answered, as though the question confused him: "Apparating or portkeys. We are not connected to the floo-network, my Mistress Ebony."

_"Shit! I don't know how to turn something into a portkey and I have no idea how to apparate. I wonder how much time I have until Voldemord decides to get rid of me..." _"Bobby, where is Voldemort at the moment?" He ignored the creature's shiver, when he said the name. He understood many things, but not the fear of a thing's name.

The house elf suddenly looked very scared again and started shivering. Ebony regretted mentioning the elf's master. "Your father is in his throne room, my Mistress. Do you want me to tell him something?" Harry's eyes widened, when the house elf said the word "father". He felt like he had been punched. It was a word he had never used as far as he could remember. This title Harry had craved to call someone all his life, it was almost enough to make Harry faint to be reminded that this someone, was supposed to be the same man who had tried to kill him many times before.

Harry regained his composure quite fast however and plastered a fake smile on his face, when he said: "No, thank you." _"It's impossible! He can't be here! He can't! My scar would-" _It was a small relief to her that Bobby relaxed as soon as he told the elf he didn't have to go to Voldemort. Bobby wasn't afraid of the Dark Lord's daughter any more. Shelooked at Bobby and trying to sound conversional asked, lifting her impossibly, long and matted hair out of her face with a little difficulty: "Bobby, do I have some strange scar above my left eyebrow?" She was horrified, because he had already answered her by not gasping when she lifted hair to reveal her forehead. She let her hair fall, when Bobby shook his head. "_My scar can't be hidden magically... Hermoine told me so, when I asked her how I could hide it! But that would mean it's gone and Hermoine also told me curse-scars can't be healed, so she has to be wrong!... Voldemort said it was a rift..." _Ebony remembered how her skin had ripped apart the night before.

Ebony decided if she wanted to find out the truth, she needed to talk to Voldemort, but she wasn't ready for that, she needed a bit of time. She knew he would most likely lie, but he was most likely also the only one, who knew the whole truth.

Bobby was waiting patiently for her to acknowledge him again.SuddenlyEbony realized she had been delaying him up for at least an hour. She was frightened that her friend would have to face consequences, because he wouldn't be able to finish his shores. She could relate to that... "I'm sorry, I kept you here for so long... You can go back to your duties, if you want to..."

The house elf's eyes widened considerably, when she said "want". _"He is definitely not often allowed to do what _he_ wants..." _Bobby seemed to get used to her _strange _behavior, because he regained his composure rather quickly. He explained in a happy voice: "But it is my duty to be here, my Mistress Ebony! My oldmaster (He tried hard to hide happiness, when he said old.) told me you were my new owner, but you are not to leave this room until I am given a different order by him, forgive me, my Mistress..."

He looked ashamed to have to keep her in the room, turning his big eyes to floor. She made him look up at her. "You aren't responsible. There is nothing to forgive..." She was furious, that Voldemort had made a houself a present to her. Mr. Malfoy had probably told him, that about her friendship with Dobby, but she tried to keep a mask in place, which wouldn't scare the elf. She was about to ask him to just call her Ebony or Harry, but she wanted to first know more about elven-culture. For all she knew it could be an insult him.

Bobby looked happy that _**his Mistress**_ wasn't mad with him, but the happiness disappeared as looked around the still destroyed room wide-eyed. He whispered softly: "What made you so upset?... You don't need to tell me of course..., my Mistress, but if you want to talk about it..."

She looked at the elf. She had barely known him for about two hours, yet it felt much longer. She guessed what just happened was, like knocking out a troll, something that two people couldn't do together without forming a deep friendship. "It's a very long story..." Her stomach interrupted her growling loudly. Ebony blushed furiously.

The elf bit back a laugh her and said in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Mrs. Weasley's, when she was in what Ebony had secretly dubbed mother-hen-mode: "Just a moment, I want you to eat breakfast first. Your magical outburst must have been very draining, my Mistress."

He popped out of the room to reappear a moment later with an enormous tray full of food. _"The tray is bigger than the little one himself!"_ There was far too much for her, which reminded her even more of Molly Weasley. "Are you hungry, Bobby?"

Much to her surprise, she did manage to make him eat with her. While they ate she told him everything. From her life with the Dursleys to her break down. She told him several things she never told anyone before, like the fact that she had lived in cupboard until she had finally received that fateful letter (That was the first time she had seen hate in a house elf's eyes. Ebony realized she had seen this Bobby do many things today that she had never seen any house elf do before.) and how she blamed herself for Cedric's death (He told her very clearly that it was not her fault and if she ever said anything, like that ever again, she would be in deep trouble. This was very unusual for an elf, but only convinced her more that Bobby was the house elf-version of her mother-figure.). For a moment Harry had been suspicious, that Bobby might have been ordered to spy on her, but she knew it was impossible, that Voldemort was using the elf. No, pureblood or half-blood like Tom Riddle would ever use a house elf for anything, but manual labor.

When she finished her tale, they sat in silence for a while. Both sat comfortably on the king-sized bed the empty tray between them. The elf had been tense ever since she had started to tell him about, what happened the day before.

"It is true...", he finally said with a small voice.

She looked at him. She barely managed to say: "What?"

"You're his daughter... There is no other logical explanation..."

Harry wanted to scream at the elf that he was a liar, but Ebony didn't find the strength.

The elf looked very broken, like he was grieving a very close friend's death. Ebony realized this must be as hard for him, as it was for her. The boy-who-lived had been the hope of the house elves, Dobby had told her so. That hope shattered right in front of Bobby's eyes. The elf continued in a small, sad voice: "I heard my old master command one of his deatheaters to bring his daughter to him... I was hiding in the shadows, when the same deatheater told the Dark Lord that his daughter had been executed, before he could kidnap her. He and many others died that night at the hands of the furious Dark Lord... I also know you are right. There is no way your lightning-scar could be hidden let alone disappear, if it was real curse-scar... There is no other explanation.", he said looking at her with tears in his eyes: "You are Ebony, Layla Riddle. My Mistress. The Dark Heir. The most powerful wizard's daughter."

Ebony corrected him in a monotone, calm voice: "Dumbledore is the most powerful wizard in the world."

The shards began to hover again. The girl knew she had to do something or her friend would most likely be impaled by mirror-shardssoon, so she closed her eyes and began to concentrate on her breathing again. _"In. Out. In and out. Slowly..." _Soon the shards could be heard falling back to the ground. A few shattered, when they fell, so Ebony wasn't surprised to see the room was even messier than before.

Ebony looked around the room. She knew the house elf would probably be punished if they didn't tidy up the room soon; he was after all supposed to look after her. He wasn't responsible for the mess, nor for that it was not cleaned up, yet, but Voldemort might be in the mood to get rid of him, if he found the room like this. "Bobby, would you please help me clean this room up?"

The elf looked around the room sheepishly, as though he had forgotten that the floor was covered in glass, china, fluff, fur and paper. Ebony was about to get out of the enormous bed, she was in, to start tidying up the room, but she stopped, her eyes widening and her mouth hanging open, when Bobby snapped his fingers again and the mirror-shards fit themselves back into the frame. Two overstuffed armchairs, bookshelves a desk, a wardrobe and a drawer put themselves back together from the splintered wood and in the armchairs case some of the fluff on the floor. Some of the torn clothes were put together and placed neatly into the wardrobe. Then the pages placed themselves into their covers and the complete books floated onto the bookshelf. The fluff and the fur turned out to belong to hundreds of black and white colored Teddy-bears with piercing red or green eyes, that decorated the room now along with even more china-dolls, that had long black hair and green and red mismatched eyes like her, who were the owners of the dresses, which the rest of the bits cloth turned out to be._ "__**Cute**__...I'd never have thought Voldemort had some sense of humor." _

The room and furniture themselves were quite nice, but a little odd as everything was either a dark black or bright white. It was larger than the Dursley's living room and the large mirror, which had been destroyed a few moments before, made the room seem even bigger, than it actually was. The floor was made of white stone and the walls and ceiling were a dark black. There was a big window on either side of the bed. _"I wonder, if I should try to jump out of one of them and try to run somewhere safe...No... I'd rather ask Bobby first if this a wise course of action, than run head first into something like an Acromatula or Devil Snare that are protecting the house." _There were many bookshelves and she was surprised to see the books were all either black or white as well. She turned her attention to the most unsettling thing in the room, the bears and dolls. They seemed to be staring at her. It was unsettling, but she knew that it was either her imagination or a simple charm.She glanced briefly at the few pictures and pieces of furniture around the room, seeing nothing that caught her attention immediately, she looked at the door to her right, which she hoped would be an alternative way to her freedom to jumping out a window, but she knew she needed more information before she could hope to successfully escape.

"Bobby, that was amazing!", she told him, smiling brightly, making the elf blush.

"Oh...", he mumbled, still a deep scarlet. Ebony could tell he had never received much praise in his life. "That was nothing... You can do that, too, with a few swishes of your wand..."

Ebony's face paled looked around the room searching for her precious, which had been one of the few things that didn't need to be fixed, but it of course wasn't there. It was either in Voldemort's possession or still at the Dursley's place._ "If Voldemort didn't decide to get rid of his wand's brother or the house hadn't been burnt down like my home in Godric's Hollow, that is." _"My wand..." She knew without her wand she would never be able to escape, but she shook her head determinedly. _"I'll just have to plan everything out. I don't have much other choice but flee after all." _

She was startled, when Bobby told her comfortingly: "Don't worry, a friend of mine told me, that my old master, your father, gave your wand to someone to make it untraceable, like an adult's wand and change the wand's length, so it is more fitting for your age. I guess, nobody told you, but you are supposed to bring your wand to Ollivander's every year to have it checked for a new length, so you receive best results with your wand, my Mistress." She shook her dumbly. After she got over her confusion, why Voldemort did this for her, she felt her head turn bright red, as she realized, why Ollivander didn't talk to her at all last year as he checked her wand. _"It hadn't been, because he had been satisfied with my wand, he was insulted that I had never entered his shop since my first year."_

"But how does he know what length my new wand has to be, if I'm not present?" She hoped she would be sent with one of the deatheaters to refit her wand and lose him in the crowd.

He reminded her for a moment of Prof. Lupin, as he continued his explanation. "He took some blood from you. That's how most people get their wands by the way. They give the wandmaker a drop of their blood and he tests the wand's reaction to the blood. A day or two later they get their wand." _"Didn't Malfoy say something about his _mother_ getting his wand? So that's how she was able to pick his wand, without him."_

Ebony thought this did sound logical; at least little, as she had never liked magical theory very much. "And how does a drop of my blood tell him to what to size my wand needs to be changed?"

Bobby looked lost for a moment before he replied sheepishly: "Magic, my Mistress Ebony? I'm sorry, I honestly don't know."

Ebony resisted the urge to roll her eyes. _"This is probably a well-kept secret of wandmakers like Ollivander. If anyone could do these things, what would they be good for? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that muggles can tell one almost anything about him by analyzing one's blood. Why shouldn't wizards be able to do it?" _

For the rest of the day Ebony talked to Bobby about anything, that came to her mind and they only paused for meals or snacks, because according to Bobby she was "in desperate need of some fattening up". _"Mrs. Weasley's long lost twin! ...How is he able to tell, when I wear these clothes anyway?" _Ebony tried several times to coax some information out of the elf, but he always answered apologetically: "I'm really sorry, mistress, but I think it will be best if you talk to your father at least once before you leave. I think he is the only one, who can tell you everything." One part of Ebony silently agreed with this, but the other more dominant part was scared on one hand of Voldemort, but on the other hand of the truth itself. _"Do I want to know the entire truth?...Yes, I think so... I hope a little of the bond we shared is still active, or else I will not be able to tell, when he lies to me."_

When the sun set Bobby told her, he'd leave her alone for tonight. He surprised her by hugging her briefly, before he said: "You only need to call for me, my Mistress and I'm going to be there, my mistress." There was a crack and he disappeared, leaving Ebony behind in the eerie room.

She climbed off the bed and walked over to one of the window's. She noticed that they couldn't be opened. _"Well, I guess that is not really a problem, as I can always throw something heavy through, but I wonder if the room is warded...or the glass might have an unbreakable charm cast on them...Boy, how am I going to escape? The _Dursleys _have been able to successfully keep me locked up and I have never been able to escape such a situation without help from outside..." _

She was on the fourth floor, the results of jumping would not be pleasant. The house had an unkempt garden and far away she could see a small village.

She remembered how Fred, George and Ron had rescued her in second year. "_Would they have done that, if they had known who I was?"_ She found herself doubting it. Maybe Fred and George, but, though she loved him like a brother, she was well aware that Ron was very biased. _"Will Hermoine stand up for me with her logical mind? She will realize that I didn't know this myself, so I cannot be blamed, won't she?... But she belongs to Voldemort's primary targets...she might be scared of me...Will _anyone_ bother to help me, if-, no, _when_ the ministry tries to get rid of me again or will they all join the 'witchhunt'?...Why should I care? I grew up with relatives, who hated me and I had no friends until I met Hagrid... I have lived on my own. I was lonely sometimes, but most of the time I was content. I don't need anyone...Didn't use to...But why does it hurt so much to _imagine_ my friends look at me with hate or fear."_

She watched a few birds fly and she wished she could follow them on her firebolt. She envied them for their ability to fly wherever they wanted. She had always hoped her animagus form was an eagle or a hawk, but she hadn't been able to find a book on how to become an animagus, yet and had never dared ask anyone. She briefly closed her eyes, trying to remember the happiness she felt, whenever she was up in the clouds on her broom, but she was sure it would feel so much better to fly on her own. She opened her eyes. A bird came too close to the house, hit an invisible wall and fell to the ground. It was dead.


	4. Meeting your enemy's mother

Direct speech will be like this: "blah"

Inner monologues like this: "_blah"_

**Ebony Riddle and the truth about the boy-who-died**

**Chapter four: Meeting your enemy's mother**

Ebony awoke to feel _very_ uncomfortable. It was still dark outside, but as soon as she sat up the room was lit up. It took her eyes a few moments to adjust to the sudden brightness.

_"Should I call for Bobby to ask him where the bathroom is? How am I supposed to _call_ him anyway?..... Scream his name at the top of my lungs would hardly be appropriate. It's too late... or early? Anyway, I don't want to wake him up..."_ She scanned the room once more, noticing, that all six portraits in her room except one, that was occupied by a _very_ grumpy-looking lady, were empty. _"Oh boy! She is definitely not a morning-person!" _"I'm sorry, Madame." Ebony decided to leave thewomanalone after receiving a very cold glare in reply, so she continued her search for a bathroom, but there was just the door to her right.

_"I wonder..." _She got off her bed and opened the door and was too relieved to discover aside from a pool-sized bathtub, a sink, and a mirror, which she swore was snoring, a toilet, to be disappointed, that it didn't hide a possible chance to escape.

It took all of Ebonys Gryffindor-bravery, but when she left the bathroom she felt considerably better.

By then she was too widely awake to go back to bed. She approached the female, who seemed to have calmed down a little, to talk to her, because she was sure she had seen the woman before.

The witch was very beautiful; she had an aristocratic face, red hair and wore a flowing red robe, but she had a very hard face, that seemed to scream _evil_.

"Good morning, Madame, my name is-" Ebony started, but she was interrupted by the impatient woman.

"I know who you are! You are Ebony, Layla Riddle, Salazar's heiress." _"I still have my doubts..."_

The woman sneered at her and hissed: "Are you daft or why are you denying the most obvious truth?"

Ebony blinked and then gulped. _"Can she read minds?!"_

The short-tempered woman rolled her eyes. "No, stupid child, I can use Legilimency !"

"What is Legilimency?", the younger witch asked curiously still wide-eyed.

The women sneered again, lecturing her: "Legilimency is Latin. It can be roughly translated _mind-reading_," she said the word as though it left a disgusting taste on her tongue, "but every Legilimens, who are obviously the people using Legilimency, knows that it is _much_ more than that. It is a delicate art! Legilimency is easier, when the spell-caster is physically near the victim and the target is vulnerable. Eye-contact is very important, so Legilimens often try to manipulate their targets into making eye-contact with them. The target sometimes reveals associated memories to the Legilimens."

"...Oh...", Ebony said, very confused by this overload of information and she was suspecting that certain people have used Legilimency many times on her already.

As though she suddenly remembered her manners, the female suddenly told her in an arrogant tone: "My name is Morgan le Fey, queen of Avalon."

Ebony's jaw dropped. This portrait was over a thousand years old and belonged to one of the most powerful witches and one of the darkest witches of all time. It was invaluable!

"_Of course! That's why she looked familiar! She had been on __one of my first chocolate frog cards I have ever had, though the Morgana on that card had been much older." _

The woman, who had been looking her intently in the eye, shook her head in disgust. "You are weak," she said, her mouth curling in distaste, while Ebony took a step back startled at the out of context statement.

"Excuse me?"

When the meaning of the sentence finally sank in, the girl turned bright red in anger, but before she could make a scathing remark in reply, the older woman interrupted her: "That's exactly, what I'm talking about," the disgust was still plain in her voice, "I don't even need to use Legimency to read you like an open book. A completely unguarded mind. You are a pitiful excuse of a Slytherin."

Enough was enough Ebony yelled at the portrait: "Well, I am proud to say, that I _am _no Slytherin. I am a Gryffin-" "_Though the hat did want to place me in Slytherin."_

Le Fay silenced her annoyedly, before she spoke: "Fool! I'm talking about your family's name, not your house!" Ebony blushed furiously, but if it was of anger or embarrassment, she didn't know, but Morgana continued enjoying to hit every easily-found nerve: "Oh, but maybe the hat was right after all and you would have been stronger, if you had allowed him to sort you into Slytherin."

"Power isn't the most important thing," Ebony said confidently.

"Oh, it isn't?" the dark witch asked in mock-surprise."Then what is? What did you gain in Gryffindor?"

Ebony hesitated just a moment before answering, carefully avoiding eye-contact with the Legilimens: "Friends! Friends, who don't use me and are not only around me, because they think they can _gain_ something by being friends with me!"

Le Fey smirked cruelly, as she coldly said: "Yes. Great friends, your are, indeed! Friends, who don't trust, envy each other and use each other." Ebony winced. This remark hurt deeply. This woman had the sympathy of a stone, so she tried to change the subject, with the first question that came to her mind, which ended up to be: "How do you know that, if you couldn't use Legilimency?"

Morgan just rolled her eyes, but she answered anyway: "It doesn't need my extraordinary skills as a Legilimens to listen to you, when you babble your life-story out to that little slave of yours."

Mismatched eyes widened in horror. Six portraits had been eavesdropping on her, while she was telling someone _all_ of her secrets! Worse yet: The occupants of those portraits were _gone_; probably spreading what they had heard. _"I guess this is payback for all those times _I've_ listened in on other people's conversations. I hope the other people are more trustworthy than Morgana." _"Who do the other portraits around the room belong to?"

Le Fay pointed to her left, where a picture of an empty study hung. "Herpo the Foul, a dark wizard from ancient Greece. He was the first to create a basilisk and was a parselmouth like yourself." Ebony looked at the picture in dislike. This man sounded like a second Voldemort, but continued to pay attention as the woman explained: "The picture to my right belongs to Grindelwald. A formidable Dark Lord, who was defeated by Albus Dumbledore, your _dear_ Headmaster, in 1945." _"Great..." _ The dark wizard's picture was a little less empty than the others she noted, shuddering. It showed a dark dungeon. A few prisoners were hanging from the ceiling and Ebony wasn't sure, whether they were alive or not until one moaned and lifted his head painfully slowly to look into her eyes, having felt someone's gaze on him. There was a silent plea in his eyes for her to kill him and put an end to his eternal torture. She felt terrible, knowing she couldn't do a thing to help him. She broke eye-contact to stare at the floor in sorrow. She brought her attention back to the heartless woman in front of her, who was staring at her with disgust. "Pity is for the weak, Riddle." The woman continued with the two identical pictures on the wall to her left, seven feet to the right of the bathroom door. Ebony gasped, when she recognised the dark, gloomy hall as the chamber of secrets. "I see you know this place. The left one is your father's, when he was still a teen and the right one Salazar Slytherin's. They are probably off to plot with Grindelwald, what to do about their far too light heiress."

The girl was beginning to feel faint. She shared this room with the most evil wizards of all time! Though she was dreading to be told, she was still curious, who the last picture, which hung on the wall opposite to the twin pictures and showed a perfectly normal chair and a black background, belonged to, but she soon realised that the woman wasn't about to continue soon, so pointing at the picture, she asked: "Whose picture is this?"

Le Fay's lips curled in disgust, as she said: "That portrait is Sabrina Riddle-Slytherin's, your father's mother's." Ebony's eyes widened, staring at the picture. _"I wonder what the face of Voldemort's mother... and my grandmother's face looks like?"_ "The stupid girl," Ebony felt a pang of fury, "gave up her family's history for a stupid muggle. What a muggle-loving fool! She was left by her muggle-husband, when he found out she was a witch and she still _loved_**"** The cold-hearted woman spat the word out as though it left a foul taste on her tongue. "him so much, she named her son after him with her dying breath! Pathetic!"

"No", the girl stated calmly, although her insides were burning with fury.

The older witch looked startled at being contradicted, obviously not used to it, because she asked rather angrily: "What?"

The teen continued with more force, looking the woman directly in the eye allowing the Legilimens to feel all the disgust and hate she felt for her: "You heard me, quite well! I said: No. She wasn't pathetic! Not at All!" She took a deep breath. "To be frank, you are the only pathetic, stupid and weak person here." It was Ebony's turn to smirk, as the insufferable woman spluttered, prompting the girl to continue: "Honestly, even you should know by now that the same love, you so foolishly discarded, can be a power beyond anything else. I'm the living proof of that." She nodded thoughtfully to herself. "A person, who shields himself from everyone around him can't ever use this ultimate power." The furious teen's eyes turned cold, as a matching smile graced her lips. She was well aware that she most likely looked insane with her expression combined with her so called _hairstyle_. After a moment of thinking the girl came up with the finishing touch, continuing coldly, before the woman had time to regain her composure: "Truly pathetic! Even my mudblood mother could use it and you, the famous Morgan Le Fay can't even catch glimpse of it. What a disappointment! No wonder Merlin was always stronger than you." At the mention of her arch nemesis' name the woman's face first paled than turned a nice shade of red, before she ran from her picture. _"The only thing she desires is power even now as a shadow of her true self." _Ebony felt _very _small pang of pity, but it was gone as suddenly, as it had come. She could already stand the woman less than _Malfoy. "I hope I'll _never _meet her again!"_

After a while the teen got bored sitting in one of the chairs, waiting for the sun to rise, so although she knew fully well it was probably a bad idea, she walked over to the bookshelves and picked a random tome. She was a little relieved to find it hadn't bit her fingers off or screamd, like some other books she tried before and it didn't seem to have cursed her either. It happened to be a thin white one. She skimmed through the summary and to her surprise it was solely on "white" magic. Following her instincts, she replaced the white book and she snatched the black book off the shelf. "OK. That's cliché. Sorting the books into "white" and "black" magic..., but I'm surprised a _Dark_ Lord has books on the _Light Arts_."

Ebony stiffened suddenly, feeling eyes on herself. She whirled around to face the direction, she was stared at from, but whatever she had feared it to be, it hadn't been a slightly older-looking version of the foreign face, Ebony saw, when she looked into the mirror only with a different eye-colour, well-kept brown hair and a more healthy taint. Sabrina Riddle's portrait wasn't empty anymore.

The eyes that Ebony felt looking at her, were a pair crystal blue eyes, that were currently teared up, but it seemed to be of happiness as the woman was smiling brightly at her. Her voice broke, when she whispered: "My Ebony... My grandchild..."

Ebony's throat tightened and she approached the beautiful woman, who looked as though she wanted nothing more than to be able to hug her. The blonde-haired woman placed a hand on the invisible wall between her and reality, as though she tried to test, if she could break through. Ebony hesitated a moment before placing her hand against the other's. There was hard oil colour beneath her fingers, but she could almost feel a soft, warm hand caressing her's. They remained like that for a moment longer, smiling at each other.

Ebony wondered, why she accepted this stranger as her grandmother this easily, while she wasn't sure yet, whether she accepted her _own_ new identity, yet or not._"Is it the uncanny resemblance?Is it her happiness to see me?... Or maybe that she seems _willing _to be my grandmother? Ever since I've looked into the Mirror of Erised I- Hey! Wait!" _

Ebony removed her hand from the picture hastily and took a step back, trying to ignore the confused, hurt look Sabrina was giving her.

"_She wasn't in it! With her blonde-hair I would have remembered her for sure, among all those Potters! I'm positive that there was no red- and green-eyed girl either! And there sure as hell wasn't a red-eyed Dark Lord in there!"_

Ebony was broken from her thoughts by Sabrina's calm, soothing voice, that was filled with sympathy: "Maybe your wish was not to have your family with you..." Sabrina broke off, but seemed to force herself to continue regretful: "Maybe your greatest desire was for Tom to never have existed..."

"_...Sounds plausible... Damn it! I should have known I'm not that lucky..." _"Is everybody here a Legilimens?" she tried lamely to change the topic and lighten the mood.

Sabrina smiled. "Actually, yes all the portraits in this room can use Legilimency." Sabrina laughed lightly, when Ebony groaned softly. "Le Fey and Salazar are the only ones, who are masters of the art, though. I can only enter a person's mind, who doesn't know how to use Occlumency at all." At her granddaughter's confused look, she explained: "It's a technique to guard one's mind. It's used as the counter method to Legilimency. A very good Occlumens can make a Legilimens believe almost everything."_"Voldemort is most likely a Legilimens. I should learn Occlum-" _Her thinking was interrupted by her grandmother's worried voice: "You should eat your breakfast. You are too thin." By the end Sabrina was looking quite sternly.

"huh? What breakfast?" turning around she saw her breakfast on the table to her left. "But isn't it too-" _"Nope, it is _not_ too early..."_ She could see the sun shining brightly outside. It would be a warm day; there were no clouds up in the sky.

She of course didn't manage to eat all the food, Bobby had made for her, which Sabrina noted with a disapproving frown. _"Can't _someone_ not comment on my eating habits?! OK, so I'm thin, it's not like I'm anywhere close to starving!"_

There was a pop and Ebony was about to happily greet Bobby, when she remembered, that a houself announces its arrival with a cracking sound, so she turned around cautiously ready to evade an attacker's spell.

A woman, wearing light blue dress robes, was now standing in the middle of the room, but it wasn't just any woman. Narcissa Malfoy, Daco Malfoy's, mother and wife to Lucius Malfoy, a high-ranking deatheater, was looking her up and down with a calculating eye.

The wandless girl backed away, unconsciously searching the protection of a friend, so she soon ended up with her back pressed against Sabrina. She looked for a possible escape, but the only door was across the room and it led to a bathroom – a blind end.

Suddenly Mrs. Malfoy surprised Ebony by curtseying and saying respectfully: "My Lady, the Dark Lord, your father, assigned me to help you get used to your new body."

Ebony blinked, then muttered: "Oh, shit..." It seemed a bit too loudly, because she could hear Sabrina chuckling behind her.

As Mrs. Malfoy moved to take something out of her robes, the younger witch readied herself to jump out of the way of any curse, that the woman might throw at her, but she didn't take her wand out. In her hands she held two small viles. She looked at them for a second then put the blue one back into her pocket.

The pretty woman, who didn't look at her with the same disgusted look on her face she had during the Quidditch World Cup, walked towards her slowly. Ebony was debating whether to try to run to the bathroom and lock herself inside it or not. It was very tempting to shove the advancing woman aside and hide behind the questionable safety of a closed door, but Ebony knew that a first year charm could open a door, that had been locked by a simple key. _"_If_ this door has a key at all..."_

Mrs. Malfoy stopped three feet from her and held out the potion for her to take. Ebony took it reflexively, because the sudden gesture had startled her. "Please drink this potion, my Lady. It will repair you skin."

Ebony looked at the vile closely and uncorked it, taking a sniff. She had never made potions with this effect, but she had learned how to recognise a few poisons already, so she could only hope, if it _was_ one it was among those few, because she wasn't very good at Potions.

She didn't recognise it. _"Is this a good thing or not? What should I..?Hm... Dark Lady, huh? Well, I can't expect too much, but I _can _make sure..." _"No," she told the woman waiting patiently for her to swallow the potion. She didn't look too surprised with Ebony's protest and only raised an eyebrow, silently asking her to continue: "You will take a sip first!"

The older witch looked at her with new-found respect, taking a sip of the potion and gave her the potion back. Nothing seemed to happen. Ebony waited a minute to make sure there wasn't going to be a nasty effect later on, before drinking the rest herself _very_ slowly. Her skin tingled slightly as it lost its transparency, but it stayed chalk-white._**"**__I probably got that from my _daddy_." _She was relieved that it _really_ did not seem to be poison.

The older witch guided her to the bathroom. She left her standing by the door, turning one of the various tabs. The bathroom was soon filled with the scent of lavender. _"Escape. Now!"_

She turned to the doorway and was about to run for her life, when the door was slammed shut and locked by a spell. "I beg for your forgiveness, my Lady, but your first lesson is a bath. Now please take those muggle-rags off."

The next hour felt like an eternity to Ebony, who hadn't known until then that taking a bath _could_ take this long, but the pureblood seemed to think she was contaminated with muggle-germs and the blue potion, which turned out to be some kind magical shampoo needed a long time to take effect. She was surprised, but the mass of knots that used to be her hair was suddenly soft and looked beautiful. Narcissa, as the older woman had asked her to call her, taught her what _she_ thought Ebony needed to know about the female body.

When it was _finally_ over, Ebony did feel more..._right_ in her new body though. After Narcissa had given her a towel and she had wrapped it around herself, she climbed out of the pool-sized bathtub. She was about to grab her clothes, when Narcissa sent an incendio at it. The girl stared open-mouthed at the pleased-looking woman. _"I bet she's been itching to do that ever since she saw them..." _"I think this is a good time for you to get used to woman's clothes."

Narcissa went into the adjoining room and came back a few minutes later with a pile of clothes in her arms.

They weren't too bad. Emerald green dress robes, with red embroidery of a dragon, that were cool even in her boyish mind, since dress robes were always cut a little feminine, it wasn't too different from the dress robe, she had worn last year.

Before Narcissa allowed her to take a look in the mirror, the older witch took out her wand. Ebony didn't back away. She was beginning to trust the other witch and Narcissa didn't betray that trust; she simple cut Ebony's hair with her wand. Nodding in satisfaction, Narcissa took her hand leading her towards the mirror.

She didn't look as sickly anymore, as her skin had lost its translucent appearance and was now an even shade white. Her soft black hair now fell to the just above the floor, while the foremost strands, that she must have unconsciously tucked behind her ear, were shoulder-length. She grinned. _"I will have so much fun scaring Seamus. The floor-leingth, black hair and pale complexion make me look like a banshee!...I hope I am not one... I'm beginning to believe nothing would surprise me anymore..."_

Ebony noticed that Narcissa was searching her pockets for something. Ebony watched curiously and smiled in joy, when the older witch handed her wand back to her. "I'm going to come once a day to teach you everything you need to know as the Dark Lord's daughter," she promised._"Thanks, but no thanks__**.**__" _To Ebony's confusion, Narcissa took out a ring and put it on her finger. After a few moments Narcissa vanished._"A portkey! Well, it's safe to assume that Narcissa can apparate, so why would she use a portkey...? Wards. Probably the same ones like those around Hogwarts."_

The next few days she spent bonding with Bobby, Sabrina and Narcissa, while she avoided Herpo, Slytherin, Riddle and Grindelwald, who always seemed to be watching her with calculating eyes. When they were away she searched for the portkey-spell, but was having little success so far or... she brushed her impossibly long hair; not to keep it free of knots of course, she could have cared less if her hair was a mess again and the potion Narcissa had given her seemed to do that anyway. No, she did this to learn to clear her mind, so she could start her Occlumency lessons with Sabrina.

The woman had told her that she had come up with it, because, although her teacher had been a master in both Occlumency and Legilimency, he had been an incompetent teacher. He had only told her to clear her mind and used Legilimency on her. Sabrina had been furious every time she came back from a lesson. It was then that she had realized that brushing her hair helped her to calm down. After a while of practising this calming technique, as she had called it, she had been able to do the first step to clearing her mind, whenever she wanted to without the stupid brush: She had learned to control her emotions.

Ebony had of course been _very_ sceptical at first, but she soon realized that it _was_ a very calming thing to do, because it was a monotonous and pleasant task, though she doubted it would feel as good if she had knots in her hair. She was starting to get rid of her emotions quite fast, but she still needed the brush to concentrate on, so she knew she wasn't ready to ask Sabrina to teach her about the next step, yet.

Brushing her hair was what she did at the moment, but she had little success in clearing her mind. She was too confused and worried. _"Why doesn't Voldemort show any interest in me?_ _I've been here for five days now and haven't seen him at all. Not that I'm very keen on seeing him, but the waiting is driving me crazy,"_ Ebony sighed, then allowed a forced-sounding laugh to escape her lips. _"Maybe he _does_ do this, so I go insane and join him," _She sobered."_or he is planing something big... He must be pretty confidant that I'm going to join him, otherwise he wouldn't have given me Bobby and told Narcissa to teach me. I need to find out how to make a portkey!" _she thought, putting the brush away and making her way over to the bookshelves.

The eighth day in the snake pit Bobby and Ebony had to themselves, as the four wizards were out, Sabrina was visiting somebody, who Ebony was suspecting to be her son, not that the teen blamed her, as she _was_ his mother, Morgana hadn't ever returned since there first meeting and Narcissa had left a while ago.

She was worried about the elf. He had been acting strangely since yesterday. Almost like he had done something punishable and wanted to hurt himself, but she had made him promise her to never punish himself again.

It was worse than the day before though. He was close to tears the entire day and when he gave her her dinner he said: "Goodbye, my friend and Mistress Ebony." He hugged her and vanished from the room with a sob, that drowned out his usual crack.

Ebony let the tray fall to the ground with a clatter as she made the conclusion. _„Voldemort wants to get rid of me. I have to search the books! There _has_ to be one on how to make portkeys!!" _

She searched for hours and was getting desperate, when she finally found, what she had been looking for. She smiled exhaustedly, memorising every word, but when she came to the passage describing how the spell worked, her smile froze.

It said: A portkey brings you to the place it was activated at._"No",_ it echoed in Ebony's head. _"No! No !No !No!! I have not spent my last hours searching for a spell that won't be of any use to me!" _Ebony realized she was panicking and it wouldn't help her at all, so she tried to calm down, but she could only think of the many ways, she could die. _"Or maybe I will end like the Longbottoms; tortured until it breaks my mind... No! No! No!! I'm not going to end like this! I'm going to live and be sane! I'm going to survive! Now calm down and think! Think! There's got to be something, you can do!"_

A few minutes later she realized that she wasn't going to calm down any time soon. _„I'm wasting precious time! I need a _clear mind _to think! That's it!"_

"_Once I can think clearly again I'm going to come up with something!" _Ebony ran to the bathroom to grab her brush._"It's ironic, how something as useless as a brush, might be the key to your survival." _Ebony spotted a piece of parchment where her brush used to be. Written on it was written in big, bright red bolt letters: _**The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve Grimmauld Place, London.**_

"_Strange." _Then she noticed that her brush had been under the parchment. She picked it up and felt herself be pulled forward by a hook behind her navel.


	5. Back With The Family?

Direct speech will be like this: "blah"

Inner monologues like this: "_blah"_

**Ebony Riddle and the truth about the boy-who-died**

**Chapter five: Back with the family?**

Ebony flew threw a tunnel of whirling colours and was too shocked to brace herself for the impact with the ground, that was sure to come.

She crashed to the floor painfully, earning gasps. She had to fight the panic, growing inside of her, but the memory of a similar series of events was still too fresh, so her mind was soon clouded by intense fear. She fought the hands, trying to hold her as the room around her transformed into the graveyard, she had been visiting every night since the end of term. Soothing words, voices around her whispered, sounded suspiciously like a cold voice to her, that hissed: "Kill the spare!"

She was pulled out of her horror fantasies by comforting arms, hugging her close to a soft body in a hug, of a kind she had received only once before; a mother's hug.

She was slowly able to take in her surroundings, so as the hold of the arms around her lessened somewhat, she recognised the person, looking down at her with tired and worried eyes, as Molly Weasley. A moment later the teen was hugged close to the older witch again. "Oh, Merlin! You are back! You are alive! I was _so worried_!! What did they do to my baby?!" Ebony was shocked stiff by the woman's frantic wails for a moment, before she hugged the woman back, trying very hard not to cry herself. _"Did she really say that last bit?"_

After a while of silently comforting the woman, she calmed down. "_She probably has bottled her emotions up for some time now."_

Once the woman had stopped crying, they stood up and she examined the younger witch at arms-length, taking in her entire appearance.

The modern red robe with black hem, she was wearing, showed off a body that was a little too thin. Ebony was actually quite glad that due to the fact that she was very thin, she didn't have that much chest to speak of. Her dark and thanks to Narcissa's potion silky hair was currently in a loose braid that she was proud to say she had made herself (with a little help of her wand of course). At last brown eyes clashed with hesitant red and green ones. Whatever the mother, who didn't acknowledge the piercing red gaze, found in them seemed to satisfy her as she nodded and gave a smile. Ebony was approved of.

Somebody cleared his throat indicating that they weren't alone. Ebony blushed; she hadn't noticed anyone else in the room. Mrs. Weasley moved a little to allow Professor Lupin to step forward and to shock her by hugging her fiercely, before giving her the same once-over her best friend's mother had.

He grinned teasingly. "You look very pretty in that dress robe of yours."

If she had been a normal girl, she would probably have blushed, but she glared at him good-naturedly.

His cheerful facade vanished after a moment revealing an even more tired-looking one than Mrs. Weasley's and relief and happiness that was hard to grasp and he hugged her close. "Gods! Merlin! Fucking shit! _Don't ever do that again!!_" he warned, emphasising every word of his last sentence, while his voice broke slightly, startling her a great deal, as he usually was one of the most well-composed people she knew and she wondered what exactly she _had _done, but figured this must be, what it was like to have...parents.

Trying to change the subject, she pointed out the obvious, but she couldn't help but look at the floor ashamed: "So I take it you know who I am?"

The werewolf gently forced her chin up so she would have to meet his gold-brown gaze. "Yes, Severus told us everything and we want you to know that we don't care, who your parents are. We love _you_!", he declared passionately.

She smiled at him tearfully, but had to ask one question, because she still had a small glimmer of hope left: "Isn't there a chance that Voldemort -sorry, Mrs. Weasley- is lying? Maybe this is all just some trick..?"

Remus looked at her seriously and thoughtfully, before replying: "Dumbledore told us there is little chance," _"Not Dumbledore, too..." _"but we convinced Severus to brew a parental potion, to make sure." Ebony couldn't believe the greasy-haired git would ever do that for her and some of her thoughts must have shown on her face, because the wizard added: "You should thank him, Ebony. He has done much for you this past week. You owe your rescue to him." _"Impossible... He hates me! He could care less if I died, much less if I was kidnapped by his master."_

Suddenly there was a knock on the door, causing them to fall apart. The door opened slowly to reveal Albus Dumbledore, who spoke amused: "Excuse me, but one couldn't help but wonder what the commotion in here was all-." He trailed off as his eyes came to rest on her.

Professor Dumbledore was looking at her with so many emotions it was hard to tell them apart, but above all else, his expression was one of great shock and regret. Her intent look must have grabbed the adults' attention, because by now everyone in the room was looking at the great wizard with worry.

He whispered a word, but it was too softly spoken for anyone to catch. He whispered it again almost afraid, but slightly hopeful: "Isabella?"

Ebony only had the time to blink, before her headmaster composed himself and contradicted himself: "No, of course not. She would be what by now? One hundred...?" Though he mumbled the last part to himself Ebony was able to pick it up. With a cheerful face firmly in place the old wizard approached the girl: "Ebony, I presume? Welcome back, my girl!"

When the old wizard stood in front of her, she noticed that there was something off with the usually youthful-looking face of the old man, but, as she met his eyes, she knew what it was: They were missing their twinkle! _"Only explanation I can come up with: He's wearing a mask...What is he hiding behind it...?"_

"_Let's try the most obvious answer..." _"Proffessor Dumbledore. Why did you call me Isabella?" Ebony regretted asking, as the man let go of his mask and revealed an _old-_ and tired-looking face. She realized that she didn't know her _friend_ that well at all.

He finally answered, looking apologetically at her: "She was my daughter, who I haven't seen for many years, since we had an argument. You bear a remarkable resemblance to her."

Feeling _very_ guilty, she apologised hurriedly: "I-I'm sorry, Proffessor. I shouldn't have-"

He cut her off, his eyes suddenly alight with the familiar twinkle as he told her good-naturedly: "You don't need to be. You had every reason to be curious. But let's change the topic, shall we? You must be wondering where you are." _"Actually I didn't, but that indeed is a good question." _She was in a slightly dark room with only one dirty window, through which she couldn't see anything. The room was almost empty aside from an empty shelf and many old chairs, that looked as though they hadn't been used for years. As the old wizard continued, her attention shifted back to him. "This," Dumbledore made a wide gesture, "used to be the family house of the Black family and has recently become residence to the Order of the Phoenix." He didn't give her time to inquire what the "Order of the Phoenix" was, before he explained, giving her even more reasons to believe he was a Legilimens: "During Voldemort's first rise, I searched for people to help me fight against him. We called ourselves the Order of the Phoenix." He sighed in what might have been old grief. "Sadly many of the original Order died before and after his fall..." He lost himself in memories and the same seemed to be the case with Prof. Lupin and Mrs. Weasley, but Ebony didn't dare to disturb them. She knew that there were few, who didn't lose a sibling, parent or cousin in the Dark Lord's first rise. _"I wonder whether or not mum and dad had been part of this Order...Oh-!__** I forgot!**__**Dad**__ sure as hell _wasn't_!"_

Dumbledore was the first to snap out of it: "Ebony, would you mind giving me that piece of parchment?"

Ebony handed the parchment, she had completely forgotten about, to him, who immediately destroyed it. Ebony raised an eyebrow at his actions, while she let the brush slip into the pocket of her robes, because she was a little embarrassed about her new 'hobby', although she knew they somehow had found out about it. _"How did they bring this brush to my room? Of course! That is what this was all about! Oh, I could kill Bobby for scaring me like this... or kiss him for bringing me home!" _

"Proffessor? What was this piece of parchment for? And that statement about the Order's headquarters?"

"This house is under the Fidelius Charm, Ebony. I'm the secret keeper, so to come here you need to either be told where it is or read it from a parchment written by me." _"My parents used the same charm to hide away from Voldemort... It didn't keep them safe..." _"Ebony, would you mind telling the Order, what has happened since you were kidnapped by him?"

Ebony shrugged, not really caring, but a little excited about meeting the Order: "There isn't much to tell really."

Remus gave her a concerned look: "Dumbledore, couldn't she tell the Order her story later? She looks like she didn't sleep for days." His voice was by the end filled with fury at her captors.

Dumbledore looked torn for a moment, because he obviously agreed with the ex-DADA teacher, but needed to know what happened. She beat him to the answer though: "Don't worry Prof. Lupin, I'm alright. I didn't sleep tonight, because I searched for a way to escape. The story is rather short anyway."

The overprotective mother and the werewolf still looked like they wanted to object, but surprisingly didn't.

"_I wonder why Sirius isn't here? Didn't Dumbledore say this used to be the home of the Black family? ...Maybe... he is still gathering some of the 'old crowd'? But wouldn't that be the original Order Dumbledore was talking about?"_

Before she could voice her question though, the adults led her to another room, where they made her sit between Mrs. Weasley and Prof. Lupin, while they waited for Dumbledore to get the Order members. A part of them Ebony was told had been sent to bed by Dumbledore, though they wanted to welcome her, too and others had to go home or to work. _"This will take a while... Why couldn't I just have gone to sleep? Why the hell did I volunteer to stay awake to tell them what happened now?" _Ebony yawned.

Mrs. Weasley frowned disapprovingly at her. "You should be in bed, right now, you know?"

Ebony didn't tell her she was wrong, because she felt the night's activities catch up with her. She leaned slightly against Mrs. Weasley. _"Just gonna close my eyes for a second..."_

Another yawn and she was out.

A slight nudge disturbed her not much later and she grumbled something, that was supposed to mean:_"Don't want to get up yet! Go away!" _She groaned slightly as the persistent someone and some chuckling others managed to drag her out of the blissful sleep, she had fallen into.

She cracked one eye open to see the smiling face of Mrs. Weasley, who she had obviously in her sleep snuggled close to.

The girl blushed bright red, when she noticed the room was filled with people, who were watching her keenly and to make matters worse she had to yawn once more quite broadly, earning chuckles from a few people. _"How_ _long_ _did I sleep? Can't have been too long... I wonder how Dumbledore managed to get them here this quickly... No, scratch that! He's _Dumbledore_. He can do anything!"_

She looked at the people keenly trying to determine whether she knew some of them or not. She did, but one of those was a person, who she would have never thought she would see in the company of wizards and witches. Actually she had hoped she would never have to see the old lady again, as she was slightly crazy. The older woman was smiling at her when their eyes met. Ebony sat in complete disbelieve as her babysitter, seemed to have a hard time not to burst out laughing, because Ebony had no doubt that her facial expression looked quite funny. She couldn't keep a slight squeak out of her voice as she almost yelled: "Mrs. Figg?!"

That did it Mrs. Figg and several others were sent into a laughing fit.

The girl felt a little insulted, as she asked a little more calmly, although there was a small spark of anger starting to form inside of her: "You are a witch?!" _"You knew?!"_

The woman smiled apologetically: "No. I'm a squib. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you, but if the Dursleys thought you liked me, do you think they would have allowed you to come to me?" _"The Dursleys..." _

Ebony shook her head, accepting the apology, then turned to her headmaster and asked: "Prof. Dumbledore, what happened to the Dursleys?"

The Professor gave a smile that she was trying desperately to believe was real and avoided her question: "Before we come to what happened since that night one week ago, let's introduce everybody in this room, who you don't know, yet."

"_Why did he sidestep my __question__?" _Ebony started to feel slightly sick, but tried to ignore it by paying attention.

A black-haired witch with pink cheeks, who she now noticed was glaring daggers at her, said curtly: "Hestia Jones." A wizard she knew stuttered: "De-da-lus Diggle," looking anywhere but at her and was shaking in what could only be fright. _"Why the hell did he tell me his name? I know him!" _A silver-haired man sitting next to Diggle hissed at her in a wheezy voice: "Elphias Doge." A square-jawed man sitting next to _Sirius, _who _was also staring at her hatefully_, was ignored by her, as her gaze was fixed on the man she considered her father, but surprisingly after a few more glaring people snarled their names at her, somebody did manage to grab her attention. Her vision was suddenly not filled with a furious Sirius, but a pink-haired head, that was grinning brightly at her. "Hello, there! I know it has been long night for you, because believe me you look it, but why don't you allow me to shake your hand before staring off into space again?" The young woman asked in a cheerful voice. She stuck out her hand, which Ebony took instinctively. "My name is Nymphadora Tonks, but if you call me that, you're going to die a very painful death," she threatened, shaking Ebony's hand enthusiastically. "It's nice to finally meet you! I've been barely five, when you defeated You-Know-Who, but I've always wanted to meet you. I grew up with your legend after all," the excitable witch babbled.

Ebony smiled embarrassed. _"Well, at least some of the Order don't hate me."_

The woman took a seat next to Lupin when Dumbledore cleared his throat, but his eyes were shining brightly. That was when Ebony finally realized that the room was not _filled_ with people, who were glaring at her. There were just as many if not more, who were smiling brightly her way, nodding encouragingly, looking at her in concern or at least looking neutral. It was just that those were on _her_ side of the table, while those glaring at her in hate and fear were on the other side of the table, so she had seen the later first. She made a mental list as Dumbledore made a lengthy retelling of what Voldemort had told her that she didn't need or want to hear, but gave her time to order her thoughts. _"I wonder whether he does this to give me some time. By now everybody should know this... Let's see on my side of the table are: the complete set of grownup Weasleys, wait! No, that's wrong: Percy is missing. Prof. Lupin, the girl, I'm not supposed to call by her name, Mrs. Figg, _**_Prof. McGonagall, an unfamiliar wizard, who must have _**_introduced_**_ himself, while I was staring at Sirius and_********_Moody. Anybody else? No, but it's curious that Snape is coincidently standing in the shadows of _****this****_ side_****_of the room. Dumbledore sits neutral at the head of the table. Why? Does he believe I might be a threat? On the _**_opposite_**_ side of the room are..._**_" _Her eyes travelled to Srius, but thankfully she wasn't paralized by his rejecting gaze again, as he had leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes with his arms crossed over his chest. _"Sirius..."_ She gulped and started to make her mental list again. _"What was that witch's name. I did get her's I'm sure... Hestia Jones...Dedalus Diggle; a wizard who probably lives somewhere in Little Whining, because I met him there in a shop_. _That man next to Diggle is Elphias Doge." _When it came to a square-jawed man, a tall bald black wizard and a stately-looking witch with an emerald green shawl she was completely lost though. She had never heard their names in the first place.

"Ebony?" her eyes found Dumbledore's as he asked her seriously: "Do you think you could tell us what happened during the past week?"

She nodded. "Of course, but as I told you, not much has happened."

"Or is there just not much you _want_ to tell us?" Every eye in the room turned to the source of the voice: A smirking Black had cracked one eye open and was once again staring at Ebony coldly. "I'd understand that, you know? After all, we are the Order of the Phoenix; an organisation determined to kill the Slytherin's heir."

Ebony gulped at the new wording of the groups duties. She watched detached as Remus and Snape lunged for Sirius and started hitting and kicking him, wands forgotten in their anger. Suddenly something in Ebony -maybe her bond to this man- snapped: If all of this had taught her one thing, it was to accept, what she can't change, so her eyes turned cold and she whispered cruely, making everyone stop dead in their tracks: "You of all people think you have the right to judge others by their family, _Black_? With your brother, who had been Voldemort's follower before he was killed by his master? Your mother, who supported his beliefs? Your cousin, who coincidently _**babysat**_ _**Slytherin's heir**_?__And your other cousin in Ascaban for the worst torture in the entire first war?" Suddenly the animagus looked very much like a kicked pup, while Remus and Snape seemed about to start pummelling him again. _"They've done their job quite nicely. Black eye, split lip and lots of nice bruises, that are beginning to form." _To the girls chagrin the three were pulled apart, before they could start their brawl anew.

Dumbledore gave all of them a hard look and told them in a cold voice: "You should know quite well that a person's heritage doesn't mean anything. If you think otherwise, you are fighting on the wrong side of this war." _"He's thoroughly pissed, but mostly with Black." _He turned to Ebony. _"Damn." _She winced waiting patiently for the scolding that was sure to come, yet didn't: "Ebony, how do you know of Sirius' family? You said something about his cousin looking after you, didn't you?"

Ebony was hesitant to rat out her friend and looked at the floor ashamed: "I will start at the beginning, OK?" At Dumbledore's nod, she continued, noticing for the first time that Mrs. Weasley had a supportive arm slung around her shoulder and Remus had come to reclaim his seat : "Well, I remember waking up for a few seconds that day only to be hit with a stunner." And so she told them everything (Well. _Almost_ everything: She _**forgot**_ to tell them about her untraceable wand and Occlumency training.). By the end everybody in the room looked relieved that she hadn't met Voldemort.

Dumbledore for his part had even more reasons to be pleased: "So there might still be hope for Narcissa Malfoy... You might have made very valuable allies, Ebony."

After a while of silence Ebony couldn't wait any longer to ask the question that had been bugging her since the beginning of this meeting. "Professor, what has happened to the Dursleys?"

There it was again. The shift in atmosphere. A few shifted nervously in their seats, while hugged her closer to her and Lupin took her hand. All this answered Ebony question better than Dumbledore's words of sympathy: "I'm sorry. They didn't survive that night. They didn't have to suffer. _"You're a bad lier, sir." _

There was a strange battle of emotions inside Ebony and most of those emotions scared her. She of course felt guilty for their death, but this wasn't one of the more dominant emotions. There was this persistent feeling of satisfaction, that they got what they deserved and happiness that she would never have to return to Privet Drive now. _"No! I don't want to feel this way! They didn't deserve to be killed for the sole reason they had taken me in." _Suddenly there was a second nasty voice in the back of her mind: _"They finally got what they deserve for making your life miserable!" "No! They didn't __deserve__ this!" "Oh, yes, they did. Think about it! Now you will never have to return to Hogwarts with undone homework, because they locked almost all of your stuff up and didn't allow you to do them, forcing you to do them in the middle of the night." "It wasn't that bad! My homework was almost always complete and satisfactory and this is nothing they deserved to die for!" "They will never make you do all the housework again." "It wasn't that much..." "They will never punish you for things you weren't responsible for ever again!" "I was responsible for most of those things! It was my magic..." "Then it was Ok that they first locked you up in a _cupboard_ under the stairs, which was your bedroom, mind you, and then inside __**your**__ room, which is hardly any bigger, giving you hardly anything to eat?" "Ever since I started to go to Hogwarts they only did this in my second year!" "They will never play Harry-hunting ever again or allow it to happen!" "...He hasn't played that since Hagrid gave him a pig's tail..." "They will not keep people from befriending you anymore, by telling lies and threatening them." "They could only keep muggles from befriending me anyway..." "They will never insult your dead family and friends again." "..." "They will never make fun of magic, your people, your world again!" "..." "They will never keep you from Hogwarts again." "..." "They will never call you 'freak' again." _Ebony broke down crying into the waiting arms of Molly Weasley, who obviously completely misinterpreted, why she was this upset, but the nasty evil voice wasn't finished yet. _"Didn't you hate each other? Wouldn't they be throwing a party right now, if it had been you?" _By now this disgusting happiness had become all encompassing. Ecstasy that she would never have to see them again..., because they were dead, because they were murdered. She didn't want to feel this way about _anyone_'s death, yet she _did _and it frightened her.

Ebony awoke on a crisp bed to the familiar sound of a taping on the window. For a moment she wondered where she was and remembered vaguely being led to the room. She was still in the dressrobe, she had worn the day before, though now it was wrinkled.

She hurried over to the window excitedly, because waiting on the windowsill was none other than Hedwig her owl and friend. She opened the window widely, but the poor tired and starved looking animal simply stared at her with it's large yellow eyes full of disappointment and confusion.

The girl smiled reassuringly and said: "Don't worry Hedwig. It really _is _me, Harry, though I don't look like him."

Hedwig looked at her skeptically for a moment longer, before she seemed to come to a decision and flattered excitedly over to her, landing on her shoulder and nibbling her ear affectionately.

Smiling, the witch scratched her friend and whispered: "I missed you, too, my girl. I'm sorry I didn't mean to worry you."

After a while her exhaustion seemed to catch up with her as her friend gave one last loving nib, a glare that plainly warned her to not walk off again and then flew over to the bedpost, hiding her head under her wing, falling asleep.

"_I should get her something to eat and drink." _That in mind Ebony opened the door to search for the kitchen, but was shocked, when something seemed to collide with the door's other side and gave a pained and surprised gasp. She gulped. Glancing around the door, she saw a young woman with rainbow coloured hair, sitting on the floor, holding her nose. There was blood trickling through her fingers, so the younger witch acted fast, as she had experience with bleeding noses. She gently guided the older girl's head to look upward to stop the blood from flowing. Concerned and sorry she muttered multiple apologies, which were all waved off. Getting a better look of the girl Ebony realized it was Nymphadora Tonks. She just had a different hair colour.

After the blood finally stopped bleeding asked her kindly wiping the blood off her face: "Where were you off to this fast, sleeping beauty?"

Ignoring the "sleeping beauty" comment, because she still felt bad for hurting the other witch, Ebony answered: "The kitchen. My owl came back just now. She looks exhausted, so I wanted to get her something to eat and drink for when she wakes up."

"Oh, that beautiful owl. She flew off to search for you two days after we brought her here along with the rest of your things," Ms. Tonks said, leading her in the direction of what Ebony could only assume was the kitchen. "She obviously didn't find you, because you were at an untrackable place." _"We are lucky I was in an untrackably place. __Otherwise__ Hedwig would have ended up like this poor bird." _ "They are brilliant animals, aren't they? They can find a person all over the globe just by being told the person's name and nobody knows how they are able to do it, but it is believed they can use strong locating magic."

Ebony tried to inconspicuously look at the girl's nose. It was an angry red and again she felt very guilty.

"It's not you fault, you know?" _"Oops, so much for_ _in__cons__pic__u__ously." _"Things like this always happen to me. I'm a klutz. I almost didn't pass Stealth and Tracking during my auror qualification," the young auror said down-heartedly.

"This had nothing to do with clumsiness! That was just bad luck. Wait! You are an auror?!", Ebony asked with unmasked admiration.

Nymphadora grinned proudly. "Yes, I became one a year ago. You want to be one too, right? I know you want to, it's written all over your face," she said teasingly.

The younger girl nodded enthusiastically. "Yes. I decided this last year, though back then I wasn't too sure, because the only auror I had ever seen was Moody."

The older girl giggled slightly. "Don't worry not everybody ends up looking like him. He still is my role model though. He was a great auror! Always tried to catch deatheaters alive, unless he had absolutely no other choice," the girl said with admiration. _"__**Someone's got a crush.**__" _They went down one staircase, until they were in a rather large room with peeling wallpaper, threadbare carpet, many sleeping portraits and gas lamps. "This is the Entrance Hall," the girl whispered, walking on tiptoes, "you better be very silent in here, becau-" She didn't come further, because she tripped over an umbrella stand, crashing to the floor with it loudly.

A loud screech filled the hall as the curtains over a very large picture frame were magically pulled apart revealing a life-sized portrait of an old woman in a black cap. Her skin was a sickly yellow and her eyes were rolling, while she screamed unpleasantries at them, drool dripping from her mouth. The two witches stared wide-eyed at the disgusting sight. While the other portraits in the hall woke up, joining their screaming comrade in her tirade.

That is when Remus ran in. He and , who had sprung up to help, worked together to shut the curtains of the portraits. When they finally succeeded silence reigned that was only disturbed by the two hero's erratic breathing and Ebony beating heart.

"What, what was that?," she whispered, mindful of the older witch's advice.

"Black's _**loving **_mother," her former professor told her maliciously. _"They used to be the best of friends... It's all my fault." _

"Come on," the other witch urged, "The kitchen is down in the basement."

"May I accompany you, ladies? I'm hungry myself," the sickly-looking wizard requested.

They scurried off silently. The kitchen was a large room with rough-hewn walls, a large fireplace, which was probably connected to the floo-net and a large table with many chairs.

Suddenly the older wizard and witch looked at a loss of what to do and very embarrassed. They looked at each other questioningly and asked at the same time: "Do you know how to cook?"

The young witch looked at them incredulously. "You don't know how to cook?!"

"Nope, I don't need to. I live with my aunt," Remus defended himself.

The older witch muttered embarrassed: "I would probably burn down the kitchen trying..."

Ebony sighed, before opening the fridge: "Let's see, something simple..."

The adults watched curiously as she made lunch the muggleway. They ate, talking about different topics, but most of all the Order. She found out that Lily and James _had_ been in the old Order as well as the parents of many of her classmates' parents, that those living at the HQ were currently trying to get rid of all the dark objects the Black family had collected over the years and make house a little more livable and about Tonks Animorphmagus ability, which was a talent, Ebony was told to her disappointment, one had to be born with.

After they had finished eating, they went back to Ebony's room, which was located on the first floor, where Hedwig was already waiting impatiently for her meal. Ebony gave her the sausages, she had saved for the owl and a bowl of water, which the owl greedily emptied, before going back to sleep.

Remus pointed to a cupboard. "Your things are all in there. So... Wanna help us get rid of those Dark and dangerous objects?" he asked innocently.

Ebony just gave her wrinkled clothes a significant glance to make clear she just had to change her attire, but the werewolf had other plans. He pointed her wand at her and muttered a spell, which made her dressrobe look as good as new. She raised an eyebrow at him.

He said evasively, shrugging: "You don't really have too much to wear..."

for her part picked his line up bluntly, wrinkling her nose, not noticing Remus glare: "We took the liberty of getting rid of those muggle clothes of yours. Honestly whose measures were that? A whale's?" _"You are exaggerating. A baby whale's."_

"I'm supposed to wear this dress until I go shopping for my school stuff?" she asked sarcastically, though she actually wondered if they _did _mean that.

The other witch looked at her with amusement. "Of course not. The two of us and probably are going shopping tomorrow." Ebony groaned inwardly. _"I hate shopping for clothes, but, hey, maybe I can __sneak__ off to the Quidditchsupplies store." _Nymphadora continued thoughtfully: "You know: If you still _were _Harry Potter, you would probably have been locked up in this house for the rest of the summer, but as Ebony you can go around freely, if we change a few of your features a little and you watch out not to come too close to a deatheater."

Ebony stopped dead in her tracks, grinning wickedly. _"No scar, no boy-who-lived, no fame, no reporters, no nothing. I'm a nobody!"_ She gave a silent cheer, before continuing to follow the two adults, who were giving her questioning looks. _"Almost normal!"_

_Now, all you have to do is to press the blue button down there on the screen and reward the hardworking author for uploading a new chapter!_


	6. Making New Friends and Letting Go Of Old

A/N: I've decided to stop putting off posting these chapters. They were good enough as they were when they were first posted, they'll do now. If I feel the need to change them in future, i'll do so. See chapter one for explanation of why this is being posted by me...

And now, here are **JuMiKu**'s original author notes:

* * *

From **JuMiKu**: Oh, about Ebony new tousled hairstyle. Think of Yuna from FF X-2 without the braid and red hair. I love Ebony's long hair, but it's a dead give-away.

**SCM****:** for those who want a idea of what Ebony might look like, there's art of her in my deviantart account of the same name.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

**Ebony Riddle and the truth about the boy-who-died**

**Chapter six: Making new fri****ends and letting go of old ones**

Ebony spent all day with Tonks and Lupin, although the ex-Proffessor had to go to other places quite often. Like when they were in the middle of taking down a dangerously-glaring picture, had come in, asking for help with a nest of dead and rotting Puffskein under the sofa, which she was too disgusted to get rid off, because many grubs and other kinds of unpleasant animals had already begun the job.

Tonks and she only worked in one room: Regulus Black's old bedroom, which was a hard, dangerous, but thrilling place to _clean_. Tonks and Ebony worked all day, but there still seemed to be enough dark objects in it to kill a small army (a big one if it was a muggle army).

Quite often innocent-looking objects around the room turned out to be inclined to kill them. For example when she had been about to touch a small serpentine figurine on the nightstand, Tonks gave a strangled cry, pulling her back, causing both of them to topple backwards, which saved Ebony from being hit by a very nasty curse that left a scorch mark on the opposite wall.

In the evening Dumbledore entered the room, finding two desperate females and a furious-looking werewolf struggling to rip a mirror off the wall that seemed to cling to it. An amused chuckle made them give up their fruitless last attempt to finally get rid of the nasty dark object that showed the death of the viewer's loved ones to every person, that dared look into it. Dumbledore looked at them as though they were crazy, before taking Remus and her to a study where and an impatient-looking Snape were waiting. The room reminded her a great deal of his office at Hogwarts with it's many curious instruments and bookcases.

She didn't really get why Snape was present, but she was determined to talk to him anyway, so she decided to ask him later.

They discussed with her how she was supposed to spend at least the next few months, or maybe years; at the very least until Voldemort got tired of trying to recapture his runaway-daughter.

It ended up with a rather simple idea of . Surprisingly the accountant, that nobody but Ron in their first year ever spoke of, was the most important person in this scheme. He had no contact with the wizarding world and was considered crazy by most, because he preferred a simple muggle-life to the wild one of a wizard. Nobody associated with him and he refused to talk to wizards or witches, so it would be rather easy to say that he had a daughter that he home-schooled for the past years.

That's when Snape decided to speak for the first time that day: "Which year will she attend? She doesn't look old enough to be in her fifth year and it might cause a few dunderheads to believe, she was Potter. Making her attend the year she is supposed to would give her identity away." _"Typically Snape answering his own question to convince those around him of his opinion."_

Her headmaster answered his eyes twinkling at his Potions Master: "Yes, you are right Severus. It would be best for her to attend her fourth year again", he paused giving Ebony a questioning look, adding, "If you don't mind that is."

Ebony shook her head. _"This going to be boring, but I have the unpleasant feeling I will have enough worries this year without the upcoming OWLs." _

Creating her identity took roughly an hour, but what _really_ took time to do was changing her looks.

When Dumbledore finally announced that he would need time to work on the documents, everybody understood the polite dismissal, but before Ebony had the the chance to leave, he asked her quietly to stay behind.

Confused the girl sat back down in the chair, she had occupied for the past hours.

The old wizard seemed to be torn for a moment, but then come to a conclusion and requested: "Ebony, would you mind accompanying to Cedric Diggory's funeral next week?"

Shocked the girl began to babble that she hadn't known him all that well and nobody knew her as a girl, but somehow the headmaster had convinced her to come a few minutes later. He sent her up to her room, so she would be rested the next morning, when she would go shopping with Tonks, chuckling at her undoubtedly hilarious expression.

She was slightly dreading her friend and rival's burial, but she knew she had to say goodbye to the boy she would have liked to have gotten to know better, for those dreaded nightmares to stop.

About an hour later a young girl, whose hair was now a bright red and in it's 'natural' tousled state chin-length, had shining blue eyes that were rimmed by a pair of frameless glasses, that didn't have any effect on her vision and slightly less pale skin, called Cassandra Prewett sat in a chair in her room. On the desk next to her a candle flickered, giving off an eerie glow, while she was trying to clear her mind without brushing her hair, by breathing slowly and deeply.

Suddenly there was a noise in the hall, which effectively pulled her back to the present. Concentrating on the soft sound, which seemed to get ever louder, she realized that it was several hushed voices, which affectively peeked her curiosity. She tiptoed to the door, careful not to make a sound and pressed her ear to it to listen to the slightly distorted voices' conversation: "-sure it's here somewhere!"

Another softer voice hissed angrily: "Be quiet! If they find us here, looking for whatever they are hiding, they will place it somewhere, where we _can't_ go looking for it! Like Hogwarts! And then? What if this has to do with..." The person trailed off or maybe just talked too softly for her to hear.

She stepped back and contemplated going after the mysterious speakers, when suddenly the door was opened and she was held at wand point by a startled Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Fred and George.

"_Oh, shit it's them. What am I supposed to do?!" _Hastily her confused friends lowered their wands, embarrassed.

Fred and his twin were the first to say something, while Ebony was still too shocked to move. Grinning sheepishly they said together: "Hey, sorry we thought you might be a clue or a weapon that has to do with You-know-who or our friend's disappearance. Nice to meet you! One of us is Fred and the other is George, but since you wouldn't be able to tell us apart there is no sense in telling you which of us is which." Hermione rolled her eyes at their immature behaviour, as they grabbed either hand of a still very shaken Ebony, kissing it mock formally, raising surprised eyebrows, when she did not blush at all.

Seeing that the foreign girl wouldn't recover any time soon, Hermione gave her a warm, apologetic smile, introducing the rest of them: "Hello, I'm Hermione Granger and these are Ginny and Ronald Weasly. We are sorry, we frightened you like this." Ron and Ginny gave polite nods, both plainly ashamed. She must look really scared to them.

When Ebony still hesitated to say anything, because she was hard-pressed not to hug her friends, which she must have missed more during these past days, than she had realised herself, Hermione asked obviously unsure of how to approach someone, who she thought was terrified of her: "Um, what is your name?"

She thought a little panicked for a moment, unsure whether to tell them that she was Harry, Ebony or Cassandra, before deciding that it was for the best to tell them the truth: "Well... I don't know whether I'm allowed to tell you that..."

Five pairs of eyebrows shot up, but they didn't seem all that surprised. Shrugging they muttered that it was OK. There were few things that could shock a wizard and a person who couldn't tell them their name obviously wasn't among them. Especially in times of war, Ebony surmised.

Ebony stepped out of the doorway, motioning inside her room, she asked: "Why don't you come in?"

The twins rushed in immediately and plopped onto her bed, occupying the most comfortable place in the room for themselves. The other three sat on the floor, ignoring the chair by her desk, thinking she wouldn't like to be forced to sit on the floor in her own room, but she sat down next to a strangely nervous-looking Ron.

Silence reigned for a moment, as nobody knew what to do next. Ebony was not about to tell them anything before she talked to her Dumbledore and her 'aunt' about it.

Thankfully Ron didn't seem to be all that interested in her past and asked unsure of how to start a conversation: "So... Do you play Quidditch?"

Hermione glared at him, but her mouth fell open, when the girl gave him a bright proud smile and declared: "Of course! I'm a Seeker."

This of course earned her a very animated discussion with the Weasley children and a very bored-looking Hermione, but when the discussion turned to Hogwarts, which Ebony told them she would attend as a fourth year, Hermione was in her element. She probably recited half the book "Hogwarts, a History" and gave her tips that might have been useful if she were indeed going to Hogwarts for the first time and hadn't already finished her fourth year. By the time Hermione was ended with an abrupt: "Oh!"

Fred or George were huddled together, fake-snoring, while Ron and Ginny were still arguing amongst themselves about this year's Quidditch Team of Gryffidor.

Ebony had been trying desperately as though all of what Hermione was telling her was new to her and tried not to check her watch every other minute, but had to realise she hadn't done a very good job, when Hermione suddenly followed her line of vision and gasped, startling everybody out of their dozing.

"Look at the time! We've got to go! Come on guys, we have kept her up too long as it is. See you tomorrow", she called in Ebony's direction, as she herded her companions out of her room, while the twins, who were _suddenly_ wide awake and teasing their younger siblings about it being past their bedtime.

Six days later a very awake Ebony sat on her bed, waiting apprehensively for morning to come.

She was wearing a black dressrobe, she had bought at Madam Malkin's.

She remembered that day fondly, when she had went shopping with Tonks, Mrs. Weasley, Hermione and Ginny, who had come spontaneously, when they had been told that the distant relative of the Weasley family, who they were officially introduced to just that morning, desperately needed to buy new clothes.

Most of the shopping for clothes was a pain to the girls, while the women, seemed to be in their element, picking out whatever robes they could get their hands on and dressing her up like a china-doll. It had annoyed her to no end, but seeing how happy the two looked she just couldn't snap at them to stop.

When this was _finally_ over, the two adults allowed them (although didn't look too happy about it) to walk off on their own for an hour, which resulted in Hermione going straight for Flourish and Blotts, while the other two went to Quality Quidditch Supplies.

At first Ebony had been a little taken aback by his best friend's sister's outgoing nature and love for Quidditch, which she had never known about, but it was a rather pleasant change in _her cousin's_ behaviour in her presence. As Harry, he had never been very comfortable with her, because she had a huge crush on him for a long time. It was also now for some reason far easier not to view her as his 'friends baby sister', than before.

The two had been in the middle of admiring the newest version of a Firebolt B, that was, as the shopkeeper enthusiastically declared, perfect for Beaters, because they need a broom that is less prone to be turned off course by the force created when hitting a Bludger, when a girl, who had straggly, waist-length, dirty-blonde hair, very pale eyebrows and protuberant silvery gray eyes and was a little oddly dressed, wandered into their view. She seemed a detached from what was going on around her and Ebony wondered if she had been on the receiving end of a hex, but Ginny leaned in to whisper in Ebony's ear: "That is Luna Lovegood. She is in Ravenclaw. Our year. She is a little strange..." A little louder than necessary she called in Luna's direction: "Hey, Luna! I didn't know you liked to play Quidditch."

Luna came over giving them a startled, dreamy look, she stated: "I don't."

Ebony raised an eyebrow, waiting for Luna to elaborate, what exactly she was doing in a store for Quidditch supplies, if she didn't like to play it, but the other girl simply stared off into space. _"She _is_ a strange one that is for sure."_What she had at first glance thought was a pencil tugged behind her ear, was actually her wand and she wore corks around her neck. All things considered the blonde gave off an aura of distinct dottiness. She was very confused by now and asked: "So, um, why are you here then?"

The other witch shrugged and stated in a dreamy voice: "I happened to come by." With that, their classmate wandered off in a seemingly random direction.

Turning back to Gin, Ebony raised her eyebrows incredulously, but the other girl just smirked shrugging: "I told you she was a little mad. This is one of her better days though. She didn't even try to tell you about Crumple-Horned or something like the Blibbering-Whatnots. I think she might be the only one, who believes her father's stories. She is actually quite nice, though. We used to be friends when we were toddlers, because she was the only witch my age that lived anywhere near Ottery St. Catchpole."

Keeping silent for a while, the girls looked around a little more, before Ebony decided to ask a question, she had meant to ask since she met Luna: "Ginny, you said Luna was in Ravenclaw, didn't you?"

Picking at a Nimbus 1999's twigs, the younger, no older witch nodded, muttering an affirmative: "Hm?"

"Well, Hermione said, Ravenclaw was the House for those, who are sharp-minded, but she well, um...", Ebony fidgeted, trying to find a way to make this not sound like an insult.

Ginny looked up at her with understanding eyes, shrugging: "I wondered about that for while, too, but when I once talked to Fred about this, he told me to think of Dumbledore, he was even crazier than Luna and the most intelligent person, he knew," she grinned a little. "The same goes for him and George, I guess. There's a fine line between brilliancy and insanity." At that moment her grin turned into a grimace. "Before I forget to warn you: You should always be on your guard, when those two are near. _Never_ take anything they offer you. They are pranksters and have recently found an investor. Ever since then they have been inventing non-stop, testing their newest products on Ron, Hermione and me."

Ebony tried not to let her guilt show on her face. "So... Um. Who is this investor?" she asked innocently, hoping she didn't know or there would be hell to pay when they found out, who she really was. _"Not that there __wo__n't be as it is."_

"They wouldn't tell us, but I suspect it was my brother's best friend, Harry. He is always generous and Fred and George did something awfully un-Gred-and-Forge like: They bought Ron a new dressrobe", the Weasley-girl said looking very sad.

Seeing her this unhappy, because she was worried for her, Ebony might have told her the whole truth at that moment, if it weren't for Hermione, who was laden with books, coming in to fetch them, so they could meet Tonks and her aunt.

Right now she wished she could go back to that day. She had been told that the ministry forced the Diggory's to only invite the boy's closest relatives, but of course an exception could be made for the Albus Dumbledore and a guest of his._ "It's so infuriating! How can they deny the Dark Lord's return?!"_

She gave small sigh as she was brought to the present by a polite knock on her door.

She stood up, opening the door. Dumbledore, who looked as though one of his very own children had died, wished her a good morning before asking her to follow him, which she did wordlessly. "The place, the funeral is held at, is St. Michael's", he said with an old mourning voice, when they reached the house's fireplace in the kitchen..

She followed his request wordlessly, watching as the flames turned green, after she threw a handful of floopowder in and then stepping into the fireplace, tugging her elbows in, she yelled clearly: "St. Michael's!"

She closed her eyes tightly, because she knew otherwise she would probably be sick by the time the ride was over.

Her feet finally hit concrete ground with such force that she stumbled out of the fireplace and onto the ground. She was in small shack with an enormous fireplace. The doorway was wide open and she could see a small graveyard chapel. With another burst of green flames the Head of the Order gracefully walked out of the fireplace with an ease that came with the practice of more than a hundred years of floo-traveling.

Helping her up, he cast a quick scourgify on both of them to clean them off the soot that they had acquired during their travel through the various fireplaces between London and 's Graveyard.

Making their way towards the last place where they would see the body of Cedric Diggory, they noticed other black-cloaked wizards and witches making their sober way towards it. On either side of the path were graves: Some were very well-kept, others hadn't been cared for in years. Some headstones declared that they died a hundred or more years ago others were fresh. Some belonged to people, who had been Dumbledore's age, when they died, others died as children.

It was rather beautiful, she observed, with many plants all around and if it weren't for the feeling of old grief, hanging in the air, she might have thought, she was in a park.

She was so sunken in her thoughts, that she was a little startled when she suddenly stood in front of the small chapel. They entered it in an almost trance-like state, emitting no sound just like the other guests. They went in complete silence up to the still open coffin, behind which flower arrangements and wreaths from many more people than just those present lay.

Inside laid a handsome young man with closed eyes, looking for all the world as though he was only sleeping. The shocked almost horrified expression and widened eyes, that had haunted her nights for the past weeks were replaced by a serene expression.

Ebony knew she should feel sad maybe even grief right now, but she felt a peace she hadn't known for a very long; that she might have never known. Death wasn't all that terrible.

The next hour rushed by, as the priest spoke in a solemn voice and soon the coffin was firmly closed and carried outside to a nearby open grave, where he was carefully lowered into the ground by ropes for the sake of tradition, instead of using levitating charms, while the priest spoke a few last words to the now crying crowd.

Finally he took a small shovel and scooped some earth from a bowl next to him onto it and let the soil fall into the pit.

One by one the assembled people either threw earth into the grave or a rose from a bowl opposite the other.

When Dumbledore stepped froward, Ebony hesitated, but after he nudged her and took her hand in his indiscernibly pulling her with him, she had no choice, but to follow him to the edge of the hole.

For a short second she scanned the delicate red and yellow roses, picking the one she thought was the most beautiful, while Dumbledore took another, letting it fall after a moment of hesitation.

Like in slow-motion Ebony watched as she stretched her arm out and her hand open until the flower slipped from her grasp. _"I'm sorry, that we never had the chance to become better friends. See you."_

As they had been the last, the people only stood pondering and crying in front of the grave for a few more moments, until they turned in a different direction, probably to the funeral feast. Ebony's stomach lurched at that. She was _not_ in the mood for a feast. Fortunately neither seemed Dumbledore, as he led her in another direction.

Both were still in morose moods when they halted and she was about to ask why, when he told her on his own: "I thought you might want to visit them. I don't think you ever had the chance." She looked at him questioningly, but he just motioned at a rather grand-looking grave with lots of lilies, ivy and lavender and a large weeping willow shadowing it. There were also many fresh-cut flowers at the foot of the headstone, so the grave couldn't be too old.

Her eyes came to rest on the monument that was the large grave's headstone. It was intricately formed and graven into it was the life-like image of a young man with glasses, which hid eyes, that were sparkling with mischief and wild hair and a beautiful woman with eyes that seemed to stare into one's very soul.

Placing a hand on her shoulder, he whispered softly: "Your brother was buried here, too. Remus and I insisted that the child should be buried at the same place its parents would be."

Ebony looked at the gravestone again with eyes that were burning a little. It only said:

James Potter 1960 – 1981

Loving husband, father and friend. The greatest troublemaker Hogwarts has ever seen.

Lily Evans Potter 1960 – 1981

Loving wife and heroic mother. Mother to the boy-who-lived.

"It doesn't mention a third person", she muttered in a monotone.

Dumbledore nodded gravely, commenting: "You could change that."

"How?" she asked.

A small spark came to his before twinkleless eyes, as he spoke innocently: "I could look in another direction for a moment, while you practise a few wand movements." She stared at him. _"How does he-? OK, now I _know _he must be a Legilimens."_She raised an eyebrow as true to his word, Dumbledore became fascinated by a butterfly.

Staring at the inscriptions, she decided to work on that first. Working carefully, she soon admired her handiwork:

Harry Potter 1980 – 1981

Innocent child. Your end was unjustly forced, but your sacrifice will never be forgotten.

She grimaced when she realized, what she would have to do next, but this had more of a symbolic value anyway. It still stung terribly to put a notice-me-not charm on the inscription.

Next thing was the picture of the couple. She concentrated hard as she let the picture that was in her mind form an additional person between the adults.

He looked like the Harry she had been just taller and more muscular; probably more handsome, too. She was about to cast the same charm on it, when she decided against it.

Gently running her finger over her brother's now eternalised face. She smiled and walked off, a happier headmaster next to her.

When they were gone an unsatisfied look came over the boy's stony features and with a determined glint in his carved eyes, took out a wand, that was as memorial as himself. Muttering a muted incantation he waved it and slowly next to him a slightly shorter, long-haired girl appeared. He laid an arm around the girl's shoulders and grinned the same mischievous glint his father's held now also present in his eyes.


	7. The Forced Protector

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

**Ebony Riddle and the truth about the boy-who-died**

**Chapter seven – The forced Protector**

Ebony chewed on a piece of toast unwillingly. Even though she loved 's cooking, she was so full she feared she might throw up any minute, but her 'aunt' Molly insisted that she should eat some more bacon, egg, toast and anything else that nobody else took before she had the chance to place it on her plate.

Bill, who was pretending to read the Daily Prophet, which proclaimed in bold letters on the front page, that the Potter grave had been vandalised and nobody seems to be able to get rid of the changes that had been made on it, and Charley were sitting on either side of her, watching this with great amusement, although they seemed to agree that Ebony could use some extra-weight. Under all that transfigured body was a still bony Ebony after all. That didn't mean she was going to eat another bite, though, she thought, eying the full dish in front off her with a glare that could give Snape a run for his money.

She gave Bill, who like the rest of Weasleys had happily started treating her like the family she was supposed to be, a pleading look to which he responded with a mean grin and a shake of his head moving his own finger like fork to his mouth. _"Isn't it great to have a family?" _Giving him a glare, she turned to Charley, who was sitting next to her, stating very softly: "If you don't help me soon, I'm going to throw up and it will be all over you."

He gave her an amused glance before standing up. He mouthed: "What do I get for helping you?". Undoubtedly understanding that her pleading look meant she'd do _anything_, he told her out loud: "I could use your assistance with a tapestry in Bellatrix Black's room, Cassy, would you mind helping me?"

Said witch froze. She wasn't sure what was worse another course or the former Black's room, glancing at her full plate and the still busy , she answered with a resigned expression, which made him grin evilly: "I'd love to help you! Thanks, !"

The older witch, who had never been in that particular room before, just sternly butted in: "But you finish your plate and it's _Auntie Molly_!" sending Bill and Charley into a fit of laughter, while Ebony blushed, glaring at the laughing duo.

There was no task and no place in the house that was as unloved as trying to 'clean' the convict's bedroom. Nobody seemed to be able to get rid of the faithful deatheater's curses and the hexes, which seemed to have been cast virtually everywhere in the room and those, who tried usually only ended up with a rash, a broken nose, an extra eye or other such pleasantries.

"_We _have_ to get rid of those though." _Ebony sighed, trudging behind Charley, who she knew was smirking. _"Anything in there could possibly be sending information to its owner or even worse its owner's sister." _She lowered her head glaring at the floor. _"Narcissa might not be a bad person, but she is - to a point - loyal to the Dark Lord...I think. You never know with Slytherins..."_

"Careful now!" the dragon researcher commanded, startling her out of her musings, opening the dreaded door slowly and cautiously. She crept into the room, closely behind him, whirling her head this way and that. "OK," the wizard in front of her murmured, "you try to get to it from the left and I from the right. The left should be more or less safe, but try to stay away from the carpet, Bill said there are still some nasty hexes in there that he just couldn't get out. We run and jump that tapestry over there. You will then hold it still. On the count of three, OK?"

She nodded confusedly. _"Why the hell are we going to jump it and hold it still?"_

"Good. Oh! I almost forgot! Stay away from the teeth!" he warned her.

"Teeth?!" she exclaimed. "What do you mean teeth?!"

Charley pointedly ignored, starting to count: "One!"

"Charley, what do you mean with teeth?!" she yelled at him, as he squared his chest.

"Two!" he continued and absentmindedly she got into a stance, preparing herself to start running.

"Charley!" she yelled at him. "What teeth are you talking about?!"

"_Three_!!" he screamed, breaking into a run. Instinctively she followed suite. Running on either side of the room, they made their way across the room, where the dirty, ugly tapestry hung. While Charley expertly dodged curses and hexes that were flung at him from almost everywhere, Ebony was almost hit by a few hexes as she ran over exactly the carpet Charley had warned her to stay away from.

As she lacked a little behind him the younger magic user saw what her 'cousin' had ment, when he had said teeth. The carpet suddenly split in half, revealing a gaping mouth that was filled razor sharp teeth. _"How did that girl come up with things like this?!"_

She ran up, trying to help Charley, who was trying desperately to heed his own advice and tried to hold the thing still without losing a finger, while he unsuccessfully tried several spells to paralyse the thing.

"Can't you just burn the stupid thing?", she rasped, wanting to lighten the mood, even though the beast was just trying to get her throat and she had to strain her body to hold it securely, while getting as far away from it as she could without letting go.

He looked at her for a split second incredulously, then shrugged and actually yelled: "Incendio! _Let go of it_!!"

They both quickly ducked, watching in morbid fascination and not a little satisfaction as the screeching fabric was burnt completely and the fire almost got out of control, until Charley had the sense to put it out, leaving scorch marks and smuts all over the wall and ceiling, loads of smoke in the room and two youths, that both sported a few nice scratches, where sharp teeth scraped skin, behind.

Coughing they made their way out out of the room, but when they opened the door, he said: "Go. Thanks for helping me. Nice way of getting rid of dark and dangerous artifacts by the way. Should have thought of that one... I'll just clean the rest up, so nobody will find out we had problems with the more harmless stuff in here, OK?"

"_Harmless?!_", she almost shrieked at him incredulously, looking at the embarrassed man incredulously, before waving goodbye and turning on her heel, so he wouldn't have the chance to ask her for assistance with anything less 'harmless'.

"_Where to go now?" _She usually spent all her time with Remus and Tonks or the other teens, but the adults had work to do and the teens a free day that they spent in their rooms, which she would have to search for as they told her to just ask her aunt (with very evil grins, while watching her being fed to death by said aunt). She walked for a while aimlessly down the corridor. Then crossing her arms, she set a cloud of soot free, causing her to smile, when she realized that she was covered grime. "That settles it then, I guess, a shower first..."

"Did you know that talking to oneself is the first sign of insanity?" startled she turned around to find that Sirius Black was standing directly behind her. "You know, you shouldn't be here. This far away from everyone," he meant in fake concern. "Things can happen. If one's alone, in a house filled with dark magic..."

"What are you doing here then?" she asked, sounding braver than she felt, when confronted with this obvious threat.

He bared his teeth in a wolfish grin: "I live here."

"What do you want?" she asked coldly, hiding the bad feelings she had about being alone with him.

"My godson, Riddle!" he snarled at her, while she backed away in, what she was loathed to admit was fright, as his face turned a into horrible mask of hate with his yellow teeth bared and matted, long hair flying wildly, but he continue to advance on her. "Oh! And while we are at it how about you give me James and Lily back?" She was now pressed against a wall, but she still forced herself to look calm, while her body told her to panic and try to flee. _"Stupid Gryffindor pride!" _"And maybe I can have 14 years of my life back?!" With a swift motion he grabbed the front of her shirt, lifted her up and pinned her against the wall, almost choking her, while she struggled helplessly. "It's all your fault!! If you hadn't been born, nothing of this would have happened!! Why? Why did you-" he stopped his rant abruptly as his eyes widened.

Ebony seeing her chance for survival forced out two raspy words still hardly able to breath, forcing him to face the truth: "Why what?"

He dropped her abruptly to the ground, where she lay gasping for breath, as he shook his head and ran away.

She closed her eyes for a moment, sitting up tiredly. She just listened to her racing heart for few minutes, very glad to hear it beating. _"That was a close one."_

Suddenly she heart footsteps down the corner. She scrambled up, squinting into the darkness, praying to every god that might be listening that it was none of her enemies inside the Order.

As the steps drew nearer she got some sense back and tried to find some cover, but it was just an empty corridor that didn't seem to have any doors. She stared at the place the person would appear in any moment and contemplated running for it, but the only other direction she could turn to was where Black had gone and she was _not_ willing to go there, she thought looking in that direction.

"What are _you_ doing here?!"she whirled back around to find out the person was none other than Snape. _"Could it get any worse?!" _Taking in her dishevelled, scratched up and soot-covered appearance, he snarled furiously: "What has happened to you?!"

She winced. "Um, I-," she muttered, trying to create several excuses, why she was looking like this.

He rolled his, muttering to himself: "Ever the eloquent." Then he grabbed her arm and dragged her down several corridors. She was way too tired to argue and surprisingly she didn't feel threatened at all by him, so when he opened a door that led into a room filled with potions, she allowed herself to be guided more gently into the room and into a hard wooden chair off in a corner. "Scourgify!" he cast in a lazy way, cleaning off the soot and revealing the bruises and cuts, she had acquired while fighting the vicious tapestry and being held up by Black.

He gave her scrutinising glare, before turning to a shelf with several big-bottled potions, picking an especially large bottle with a soft pink liquid. He pulled off the cork, sniffed at it and took out a vile pouring a small amount of the potion into it. "Here," he said, handing it to her, "drink it."

She eyed it almost as warily as Narcissa's as she held it, but then she recognised it as one of the numerous healing potions she had been given by Madam Pomfrey and downed it, grimacing as the terrible taste filled her mouth. "...Thanks..."

For a few minutes they just sat in silence both absentmindedly watching the girl's wounds heal.

"Care to explain, why you were not only covered in soot and dishevelled, but also badly bruised and covered in bites, girl?" he asked in a soft voice that betrayed none of his emotions.

"Um, well, Charley asked me to help him with a man-eating tapestry," she said as though it was obvious, attempting to stand up, but she found herself forced back into her chair. She glared at him for a few seconds, before remembering that she wasn't supposed to look into any suspected Legilimens' eyes, when she wanted to hide her secrets from them. Facing the floor she attempted to glare a hole into that instead. _"Why doesn't he allow me to leave? Why did he help me, anyway? Does he suspect I was leaving out something? Why don't I just tell him what happened, anyway? What do I care if Snape tells Dumbledore or Voldemort or who ever that the mutt wanted to kill me; just to get him into trouble? He would certainly deserve it and just once Snape and I would delight in the same thing."_

"I know you're lying," Snape whispered in a bone-chilling voice, "Who grabbed you by the front of your shirt? I recognise many signs of brutality and I doubt a carpet, even a," here he changed his voice into a mocking imitation of Ebony's, "_man-eating one_," his voice became even colder than before and the girl half wished he would just continue to taunt her, "could grab somebody by the front of their shirt. Actually I know _someone_, who showed that he is quite inclined to do so..." Shocked the girl stared at him and realised far too late that she had given Sirius away, as Snape bared his crooked, yellow teeth whirling around his robes flying wildly, he whispered furiously: "I'm going to strangle you, Black!"

Before he could walk much farther though, the amazed witch had reached him, taking a hold of his arm she got his attention and both looked into each other's eyes. She asked him, looking deeply into well-guarded onyx-eyes. "You know what he asked me, don't you? It's quite a good question: Why? Why do _you _care?"

Hesitating the man looked into her eyes for a moment, then gave her a carefully-worded answer: "I gave a good friend my word, that I would."

She let go of him and backed away a few steps, just incase he had 'promised' it to someone she actually _needed_ protection from. "Whom did you _promise_ this to?"

He didn't say anything for a very long time, before he finally murmured softly: "Your mother."

Her eyes widened, but soon hardened, as she stated furiously: "Why should she ask you to do anything?!"

What Snape did next shocked greatly, she had expected him to throw her out of his study, but he just smirked: "Yes, I was quite astonished, too, we had never been enemies, but we hadn't been very close friends either, but it seemed she couldn't find anybody willing to be the godfather or -mother of her newborn child should anything happen to her – very possible in such troubled times."

She retorted in disbelief: "I don't believe you. If you had been such good friends with her, why did you treat me so badly when you thought I was Harry Potter?"

He glared at her, hissing angrily: "Because just because I liked your mother doesn't mean I have to like her pompous brat."

Blushing in anger she taunted: "Yeah, sure! The truth is that _you _are too self-centred to put your liking of Lily before your hate for my fath-!"

He sneered. Obviously savouring the moment, before he added to it: "Oh. I think you are forgetting something very important. Your father isn't James Potter, girl. Your father is the murderer of him and your mo-." He cut himself off. His features turned the smallest bit guilty, as he guided an unresponsive young witch into the chair she had vacated not that long ago.

She almost laughed out loud, when she realised that he was acting a little like Sirius: Say something before thinking. The only problem was, that she usually wasn't at the receiving end of it and though she didn't really like admitting this even to herself; it stung! She looked down at the floor. Being hurt by Snape she realised wasn't that bad, but being intentionally hurt and rejected by her godfather was agony.

"Come on, girl! Say something!" he almost yelled at her.

She winced, but remained otherwise silent. She hated being yelled at like that. It sounded a great deal like Uncle- _"No, I don't want to remember that."_ A small spark of happiness slithered itself into her heart and she hugged herself, closing her eyes tightly.

Snape must have been scared to death by now, because she felt two hands settle on her shoulders, shaking her lightly, as he said in an urgent voice: "Come on, girl, snap out of it!"

She didn't respond to that at all, she was too distracted as the feelings that made her feel disgusted with herself came back full force.

After a few more minutes a seemingly terrified Potions Professor reluctantly copied, what he had seen do the night she had come back, hugging her, which effectively startled a tense Ebony into awareness. She still didn't look into his eyes though, afraid of what he might see.

He let go of her immediately, as soon as he saw that her eyes had opened, he stood straight, turning to one of the shelves acting as though he was examining the different potions and ingredients, picking some up and sniffing at them. A minute of silence followed, before he murmured seemingly hoping she wouldn't catch it: "I'm sorry...I shouldn't have said that."

"_He really thinks I was like that only, because of his words. He really doesn't know me at all." _Feeling that if she didn't ask them now she would never be able to, she searched for some of the many questions she had wanted to ask him a long time ago or at least since the past week, but she couldn't remember any of those, so she settled for a more recent mystery.

"So," she went, her voice a little too scratchy for her liking, "you beat up Black just, because you are my godfather?" _"Thinking of Snape as my godfather feels so... I don't know!"_

She could just see the big self-satisfied smirk on his face, as he said in a voice that could be considered conversational: "That was only part of the reason I did it then..." _"No, surprise there! He of course loves to talk about beating up Si-Black!"_

"And the other reasons?" she continued, trying to make him talk.

He responded lightly, taking off the lid off a bottle with green stuff in it that must have been rotten as the stench reached her nose: "I have been waiting for a reason to hit him like that for a long time..."

"Why not curse him?" she put in, grinning, but it soon disappeared, when he didn't reply for a long time. "_Doesn't he want to answer the question or he is thinking about his explanation?"_

Finally he turned around, eying her calculatingly. He said: "Growing up without magic, you just like to do some things without it."

She gaped. _"A muggle-born deatheater?!" _

"I'm not muggle-born!" he hissed fiercely. _"Another_ _Legilimens. No surprise here..." _She could have hit herself for staring at the spy. At her questioning gaze, that asked him to continue, he gave her a short glare that plainly said this was a secret, before he explained: "I've just been raised among muggles until my mother told me I was a wizard."

"So you are a muggle-raised Half-Blood like me," she murmured astonished.

"Yes, I didn't make many good encounters with muggles though," he frowned, leaning against the shelf he was standing in front of, giving Ebony the impression that he was wondering why he was telling her all this.

"_Well, if he let's his walls down maybe... I should return the favour?" _"Neither did I," she spoke slowly not sure whether she wanted him to know this, "My relatives didn't like me, because they felt I was ...well not like them," he nodded for her to continue, some understanding creeping into his emotionless eyes, "and everyone else thought I was frightening, strange or just an annoying troublemaker and loner."

"Muggles never change I guess," he whispered, a sad smile touching his lips, "They still fear everything they don't understand!" he ended harshly.

Feeling obliged to say something for the muggles' defense, she retorted: "Wizards are no better! They are just as afraid of muggles, because they don't understand them and how they live without magic."

He looked at her raising an eyebrow a proud look gleaming deep inside those cold black eyes for just a moment.

Feeling a little embarrassed for her enthusiasm, she decided to change the subject: "Um, so is the paternal potion finished, yet?"

Snape smirked at the random topic, shaking his head. "Another thing that the muggle world and ours have in common: Proving someone's parentage takes time. Maybe in another week." She felt a little hope every time she thought of that test, but seeing that look, the ex-deatheater gave her a damper: "You shouldn't cling to false hopes. Chances are very low and you know that."

She remained quiet. She didn't need to be told that. Everybody seemed to say that.

"Do you want me to bring you to the room Weasley and Granger are living in? I doubt you could find your way there on your own and they would probably delight in seeing you."

She nodded. "Yes... Please."

He opened the door, holding it open until she past through, then closing it behind them. She glanced at the spot she had been pinned to by Black earlier, while going past it, shuddering, when she remembered the murderous glint in the animagus' eyes. _"I have to stay away from him..."_

When they stood in front of the door to Ginny's and Hermione's room. Laughter could be heard inside. Ebony turned around to have a last word with the usually elusive teacher, but he was already gone. _"He is probably as freaked out that we have quite a lot in common as I am... That was actually quite strange. We hit it right off after we got past our mutual hatred... It was almost like when I met Si-...Black!"_

She knocked on the door. The giggles stopped abruptly, as the door opened to reveal Hermione and all the Weasley teens, who immediately grinned broadly, when they saw, who it was, dragging her inside.

_**AN(Originally by JuMiKu)**__**:**___

_**So if you think, this was out of character on both parts: Ebony is, if you haven't noticed projecting her feelings for Sirius on her new godfather, while Snape is just forgetting, who she is and a very lonely man in general...**_

_**If you are wondering, what Sirius had been doing in that corridor: He was trying to get access to Snape's study and find some evidence for him still being a loyal deatheater. I just tell you this, because I don't see a place in the story, where this might be explained. **_

AN (Now by SCM): The adventure continues in _**Harry Potter: Keeper of the Dark Heart**_, over in my profile. It's been 'completed' for a while now, but that's only because Keeper's currently on other worlds. Check it out for more of Ebony.

The next two chapters of _**Ebony**_ will be more my style, even though parts of them were originally written by **JuMiKu**, before she let me have it.


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